Falkland Islands MPA

[252]

No soy espia argentinine. Soy radgio escosesDT_Xtremez_14:.


Back on topic: Whilst the powers that be don't want everyone permanently ****ed, limiting the amount people can drink would put a real downer on being there. There's not a lot else to do.

FFS, they even banned jumping out of the long grass at the penguins when I was there.

There were signs(mainly directed at pongos and plumbers)on sealion island saying "dont kick the penguins 50 quid fine"near where the wee ones that live in burrows resided

 

[Jaymac]

I went there on my R&R. One of the ones in the burrows (jackasses I think they were called), had got itself tangled up in some wire and myself and some the chaps untangled it. It fought like fcuk until it realised we weren't going to eat it.

But: just to prove we weren't a bunch of pussies, one of the wee rockhoppers squared up to one of the lads who promptly kicked it over the side of a cliffDT_Xtremez_19:. It then scrambled back up 20 feet and legged it from us. There were no signs saying not to kick the penguins at the time but I doubt it would have saved it from its trip.

We also used to play 10 pin bowling with the ones coming up from the sea. If you kicked the ball into them they would all keep going and trip over the one in front till there was a massive pile up.

 

[252]

I went there on my R&R. One of the ones in the burrows (jackasses I think they were called), had got itself tangled up in some wire and myself and some the chaps untangled it. It fought like fcuk until it realised we weren't going to eat it.

But: just to prove we weren't a bunch of pussies, one of the wee rockhoppers squared up to one of the lads who promptly kicked it over the side of a cliffDT_Xtremez_19:. It then scrambled back up 20 feet and legged it from us. There were no signs saying not to kick the penguins at the time but I doubt it would have saved it from its trip.

We also used to play 10 pin bowling with the ones coming up from the sea. If you kicked the ball into them they would all keep going and trip over the one in front till there was a massive pile up.

Thats you off David Attenbouroughs X mas card list then you cruel cnut......signs should have been up and ammended to include TG3DT_Xtremez_21:

 

[Jaymac]

Some fcuker had nicked the signs before we got there.......was it you?

As for those fcuking sealions: covering themselves in sand and then trying to attack you when you were walking along the beach.

The best way to get a decent photo of them was to get one of your mates to hoy a rock at them and then snap away as they expressed their displeasureDT_Xtremez_14:.

 

[CodeMonkey]

The best way to get a decent photo of them was to get one of your mates to hoy a rock at them and then snap away as they expressed their displeasureDT_Xtremez_14:.

A certain person who may be a goat member (not me) may have done that while i was there.

 

[MAINJAFAD]

Really? We were interrorgating one of our TG12's who has just arrived back from one of the mountains and he didn't mention any 2 can rule.

That's because he left before the ruling came out. he would have been right screwed with the new rules as Wine is banned as well.

 

[Jaymac]

A certain person who may be a goat member (not me) may have done that while i was there.

It sounds like TG3 inventiveness at its best. How else were you meant to get a decent photo?

 

[Max Reheat]

I seem to remember they brought out a rule a couple of years ago that they would only sell you 2 cans at last orders to stop people stacking, however that seems to have fallen by the wayside. I bought 4 at last orders last night

 

[252]

Some fcuker had nicked the signs before we got there.......was it you?

As for those fcuking sealions: covering themselves in sand and then trying to attack you when you were walking along the beach.

The best way to get a decent photo of them was to get one of your mates to hoy a rock at them and then snap away as they expressed their displeasureDT_Xtremez_14:.

Suspect you may mean Elephant seals(the big fcukers!)

 

[Jaymac]

I think you're right about the elephant seals. Big cnuts and fast as fcuk over short distances.

According to the FI website, their population has fallen by 90% since the 1980's. This is attributed to the onset of commercial fishing rather than having rocks bounced off their headsDT_Xtremez_14:.

 

[Wickham]

I can't resist opening this old thread, sorry.

Only two cans? How can anyone survive on that. See
http://www.wickham43.com/falklands/eastcovecamp.html

The Sunday before 7th February 1984 8,500 cans of beer were drunk by 450 people, some of whom weren't drinking, but it was an average of nearly twenty each.

On Monday we counted the trays taken out of a container which was full before.

Also from http://www.wickham43.com/falklands/sitecamp4.html August 1984.

We reckoned about 100,000 cans were drunk each month, five containers arrived each month and each carried 20,000. This worked out at about seventeen each per week at the time.
which just shows how the site had become more civilised after the hectic pioneer days; seventeen per week on average over a much larger workforce compared with nearly twenty each on just one Sunday night's entertainment.

 

[Oberon305]

Ha Wickam - good drinking drills sir. The pics of the site camp bar bring back fond memories of the 78Sqn Tiger Lounge. Good times! Thanks for providing us with the roof over our heads.

 

[Teh Wal]

Ha Wickam - good drinking drills sir. The pics of the site camp bar bring back fond memories of the 78Sqn Tiger Lounge. Good times! Thanks for providing us with the roof over our heads.

My thinking exactly DT_Xtremez_30:
It's a good read Wickham, great story, must have been fun times but so ruddy hellish at times too. 1 solitary observation though mate, the chopper on this page is a Sea King not a Wessex --> http://www.wickham43.com/falklands/military.html Believe it or not the very same RAF Sea Kings are still wizzing around the skies of both the UK and the Falklands, albeit in a yellow colour scheme. Sadly the one in your piccie wont be one that you see down in Devon operating out of Chivenor because the Chiv ones are a different mark - Mk3a rather than Mk3.
And that picture might have just answered a query that was doing the rounds before the grey Sea Kings were finally painted yellow... the cabin door has got 'S' & 'A' on it: which was probably an abbreviation of South Atlantic (maybe?). Well for a while in the late 90's and very early 2000's the grey cabs only had 'S' which had some of us scratching our heads. We knew it must be related to the Falklands 'cos at the time only the grey ones were doing the rounds down there (there is a cyclic maintenance schedule, the cabs are swapped around at regular intervals with ones here in the UK). I can only assume that following an amendment to one of the maintenance publications the 'A' was deleted by oversight and from then on, whenever the doors were repainted, the 'A' simply never got put on. Ah well, if it's not true at least it's a theory DT_Xtremez_31:

 

[Wickham]

My thinking exactly DT_Xtremez_30: 1 solitary observation though mate, the chopper on this page is a Sea King not a Wessex

Thanks for the correction, Teh Wal. Oberon305, I never photographed the main bars at our site camp, there were three eventually for about 2000 to 3000 workers, very crammed and noisy. We made our own unofficial bars in portakabins which I photographed and eventually in a "villa". At the time of the earliest evening free when a huge amount of beer was drunk, we used a hold in the Merchant Providence after it had been emptied of excavators, etc. There were only about 450 of us there then.

 

[Wickham]

My thinking exactly DT_Xtremez_30:
And that picture might have just answered a query that was doing the rounds before the grey Sea Kings were finally painted yellow... the cabin door has got 'S' & 'A' on it: which was probably an abbreviation of South Atlantic (maybe?). Well for a while in the late 90's and very early 2000's the grey cabs only had 'S' which had some of us scratching our heads. We knew it must be related to the Falklands 'cos at the time only the grey ones were doing the rounds down there (there is a cyclic maintenance schedule, the cabs are swapped around at regular intervals with ones here in the UK). I can only assume that following an amendment to one of the maintenance publications the 'A' was deleted by oversight and from then on, whenever the doors were repainted, the 'A' simply never got put on. Ah well, if it's not true at least it's a theory DT_Xtremez_31:

SA could have been part of SAR (Search and Rescue) as shown here
http://www.globalaviationresource.com/reports/2009/thefalklands.php
which has a photo of a Sea King in Stanley around the same time as my photos although the photos show S C and only S-- but the text refers to SAR.

My photo http://www.wickham43.com/falklands/military.html does show lettering RAF Rescue on the Sea King, but there doesn't seem to be room for R after SA.

 

[Teh Wal]

Well, I thwarted my own theory a couple of days ago... I noted a picture on a aircraft website of a Sea King taken in 1985 down in good old FI that had S and D on the door so I'm feckin' stumped to be honest! DT_Xtremez_16:

P.S. the Bristows choppers are Sikorsky S-61Ns... a stretched relative of our Sea Kings DT_Xtremez_29:

 

[Wickham]

I noted a picture on a aircraft website of a Sea King taken in 1985 down in good old FI that had S and D on the door so I'm feckin' stumped to be honest!

So there was a Sea King with S A (my photo, space in the middle), another with S C (space in the middle), another with S--C on the nose (? same one?) and the one you saw with SD. Looks like a simple sequence to identify different helicopters instead of 1,2,3 or 4.