Stanley Harbour

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Stanley Harbour is a large inlet on the east coast of East Falkland island. A strait called "the Narrows" leads into Port William.

Stanley Harbour was originally known as Beau Port^[1][2] (French), later Port Jackson, and has sometimes been known as "Port Stanley". It serves the town of the same name - Stanley - as a harbour. Stanley has sprawled along the south shore of the harbour, to gain shelter from the low hill of Stanley Common. As such this is the busiest waterway of the Falkland Islands and frequently visited by cruise ships, freighters and navy vessels, although this has lessened since the building of the two airports at RAF Mount Pleasant and Stanley Airport. It was formerly, and still is to some extent, a repair yard for vessels damaged in South Atlantic storms, or needing to restock.

The peninsula on which Canopus Hill, Stanley Airport and Gypsy Cove lie, together with a narrow spit of land known as Navy Point, effectively divides Port William from Stanley Harbour. This in turn creates a small bay in Stanley Harbour known as the Canache, which is bridged at one end.

Stanley Harbour is effectively the enlarged estuary of Moody Brook, which flows into it at the west end. It was enlarged as the result of glacial action.

[edit] Shipwrecks

Stanley Harbour has experienced a number of shipwrecks. The remains of the following can still be seen -

• Lady Elizabeth - at the east end, near the Canache, a three masted freighter, which sank in 1913, after hitting a reef and limping into harbour.
• Jhelum - an East Indiaman, which sank in 1871, and was abandoned by its crew.
• Charles Cooper - An American packet, sank in 1866, used now as storage space, by the Falkland Islands Company.

[edit] Sources