Falkland Islands - Port San Carlos

Port San Carlos Settlement(PSC) was used to base the Chinook helicopters after the Falklands War and was originally a tented camp.
I was attached from Military Works Force FI to a Field Troop of 51 Field Squadron Royal Engineers to assist with the installation of the electricity for a Portacabin camp to house the tented camp personnel.

From the new road looking to the North

The low ground near the road in the centre was where the tented camp was

The top of the hill in the centre was where the Portacabin camp was built.The large green building on the hill is a Packaway and was used to house the two 112Kw Lister generators(AC),a second Packaway was used as a cookhouse,this has since been added to the rear of the generator Packaway to double the shed size.The generators are now no longer there.
After the War when the generators became operational in January 1983 power was supplied to the Settlement as well as the camp,the only power that was there originally was for lighting only and consisted of a diesel driven Dynamo(DC) charging batteries during the day.
As the Locals had puchased a whole range of electrical items that required AC power when the camp had served its time the military sold one of the Lister generating sets and the Packaways/Portacabins to the Settlement.

The Settlement Manager's house at the time of and just after the War

The Generator Packaway,notice the large louvres either side of the main roller door,these were the air intakes as the Lister generators were air cooled.
Air cooled generators were chosen as the source and reliability of water supply could not be guaranteed.

The Packaway on the hill.
The flat ground just beyond the trees on the right centre is where the Chinooks landed.

Looking down into Port San Carlos from the new road,from where the photograph is taken just to the right is a rock field from where on a Sunday afternoon(we had Sunday morning off each week!!!)we collected rocks to supply the crusher to create aggregate for our concrete.

This is now Port San Carlos Lodge and is a B&B/Hotel.
During our stay it was the Accomodation of the Hierachy of the Field TP,51 Field Squadron RE,it was where our cookhouse was located during the camp build.
It has been extended to the right with extra single storey accomodation.
We had erected 4 Portacabins to accomodate 30 personnel on the actual camp site and we used a 6KW Lister lighting tower generator to power them.
1 Portacabin was a Bar(Engineers always set up a Bar as a priority!!!)and 3 were accomodation,each Portacabin had 1 X 2Kw heater and if they were all on together the little generator would struggle but it never let us down.

This is looking upriver along the San Carlos River to the East,the Eastern edge of Port San Carlos can just be seen at the centre right of the photograph.

Looking to the West and San Carlos Water with the Falkland Sound in the background.
The land in the background is West Falklands.