Fly Fishing on Falkland Islands

Days before we arrived at Port San Carlos and Racepoint Farm, I became aware of our next location. There is a truth in the saying "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach": I bought steak at the supermarket in Stanley, which turned out to be the most tender and best rib eye I' ve eaten in a long time. And it was from Racepoint Farm. Plus: The owners Michelle and John were also described as very simpatico by everyone who knows them. It was a deeply impressive experience to stay as a guest on a farm on the Falkland Islands. An experience I would not miss for the world. Racepoint Farm has a separate building for its guests, which offers the comfort of a modern and very functional detached house.
And it's true what they told us: Michelle is a lovely woman and an excellent cook, and John is a very open-minded and knowledgeable landowner.

John brought us cross-country in his nonchalant way, through fence and paddock, over hill and dale, through heights and valleys, across heathland and bogs to a point of the Port San Carlos Bay, which was a genuine eye-opener. He just smiled as we pampered city dwellers became a little pale around the nose during this adventurous cross-country trip. For a true Camp resident, this was but an afternoon walk. He took us to a place where you could see an old ruin. Such man-made stones, piled up a long time ago are nothing unusual in other countries, but in the sparsely populated Camp of the Falklands it appeared almost exotic.
The place and the ruin were the former domicile of the Blackley couple, who lived here at the end of the 19th century.
Thanks to the German photographer Gustav Schulz, who lived on the Falkland Islands for one year in 1887, their life was captured in valuable images. Mr. Blackley earned his living as a shepherd and gaucho in the service of a large landowner. The couple adopted two girls at a young age who were considered local beauties – much to the dismay of the regional horse owners, because the young boys often stole their horses at night to visit the girls. But the family was so popular that the future widow Blackley received tobacco for her pipe for free from local traders until the end of her life.

The bay around "Blakely's" is almost decoratively romantic and you can still feel the spirit of the previous residents. Extensive Diddle Dee (red crowberry) fields with large juicy red berries grow on the banks in late summer. The narrow coastal strip is easy to enter and you can still find a lot of remains of the Blackleys, for example in the form of broken glass.
Water clouded by a lot of sediment makes it sometimes difficult for anglers on the Falkland Islands to estimate the depth or locate fish, but it is crystal clear here. What is also striking for the waters of the Falkland Islands is the brown colouring of even the salt water in various places – sometimes even the sea cannot compete with the immense peat reservoirs. It is therefore not surprising that sea trout that feed near the coast are coloured dark and are thought to be brown trout. Nothing wrong with that, because on the Falkland Islands the transition between brown and sea trout is literally „fluid“ and the term "sea-run brown trout" has a good ring to it.