ARWEN’S TRIP TO ICELAND

If you want a trip out, you need lots of time & patience to do this one. Iceland is not most people’s idea of a trip.” Isn’t it meant to be cold.” Well it certainly was when we left Britain, travelling up to Peterhead for the first stop, unfortunately with wind on the nose, then no wind & a lot of motoring. Little did we know at the time that this was to be the pattern of the trip.

Pushing out in the drizzle of a Scottish morning we headed north, from Peterhead, around some lumps of soil the map called ‘Orkneys’ & out in to the Atlantic. That place of high winds & big seas that send the unwary to the bottom. Well, we tried a bit of sailing & a bit of motoring. Then some more sailing & some more motoring & then some…….. oh, I lost count on this trip, but one morning there with the dawn was a beautiful sight. The Faeroes stood before us in all there splendour. Of all the places we visited over the 6 weeks this Fair Isle has that something that will personally draw me back again next summer. Time forgiving. A strong wind 2 days later, on leaving the capital Tors Haven drew us back in to another island port while we waited for a change in the conditions. Then onwards to Iceland, 2 ½ days of sail & motor &…… ho that again. So out of a morning came the site of high mountains and the reason why we had chosen Hofn as a landing place, there, resting on the hills was the Vetnajokul glacier a wonderful place to visit high in a beautiful country. Getting in to Hofn was carefully done on a pleasant day. The weariness of the last few days was washed away by several hours spent in the local hot outside swimming pool, a pleasure that became a standard for our stop-overs.

Two days on and we set sail for the northern coast and all eyes were peeled for whale watching whenever we could. This got us started on a book for position and identification, position being the easy part, identification of the small amount of whale that you can see sticking out of the water was the hard part.  However, very enjoyable as we had many sightings with a spectacular vision of a breaching whale & dolphins playing around with the boat on many occasions along the way.  At Oosavick on the north coast we met up with a group of polish students on a 50 ft yacht who managed to persuade the captain of the local whale watching boat to invite us all out for the next days trip out and across the bay on what luckily was one of the calmest and best days of the year for whale watching.

From here we paid a small visit to a island split by the arctic circle called ‘Grimsey’ where the water was so clear that we watched over a hundred fish swimming together off the end of the local jetty, and believe me it was not cold here, not warm, but not cold by any means and the locals were very helpful. It was here that I met a painter working on the local church to refurbish the interior to a plan that would take him 4 months worth of work, before going on to others across Iceland that will keep him busy for the next 15 years with what is already planned! 

Well, onwards again, and with so little wind we crossed a glassy sea to the north West Coast and some of the most spectacular scenery so far, with great rising cliffs, and snow capped mountains. This is indeed a land fit for giants, but I never saw any. As for trolls, well I think they were there, but hiding behind the hills! Maybe!

Landing in the fjords the next day we met up with some local boats and were informed of places to visit and local history. Here were the remains of a whaling station abandoned back in the 1930’s when local whales were all but finished off!

This is the point at which we went for a trek up a local mountain, complete with snow and ice ridges, with waterfalls making tunnels large enough to walk through, and huge areas of stone and moss, looking like large versions of Japanese gardens, beautifully laid out in the middle of nowhere.  A strange land indeed.

Onwards again to a place called Isofijorda (I think that’s how it was spelled) and another refuelling before a good sail down to Keflavic where we hired a car for the day, went into the hinterlands to see the geysers and huge waterfalls that are there.  We ended this day by going to a beautiful place called the blue lagoon for a sulphurous swim.

Now a word of warning! If you go to Iceland, take all your own food as we did. Eating out is some thing you will only do once if you want to have money in your pocket.  Really, it’s 3 times more expensive than here!

Where to next?  Well the Westman Islands on the south coast. This was a good sail through the night. They are very beautiful and with scenery to die for. But we are running out of time. So after a brief stop over to see the volcano it’s out into the Atlantic for 5 days before turning down towards Scotland for the run home. I was looking forward to a classic down wind Atlantic sail. But I was disappointed when the wind dropped off and again a lot of motoring. We were only given fair grace in the last 36 hours with a lovely run down wind. Whipeee…….. Home again!

In total this took 36 hours short of 6 weeks, where all that time went to I could not say (it must have been a troll’s spell). But we saw sights and met people we never would have if it had not been for Arwen. Many people came up to talk to us or just look at the mad idiots from England. But she did us proud, and the good preparation work done by Paul and Lynn paid off, as we had few breakages or troubles. The weather was probably too good as we would have liked more sailing. But you cannot have it all your own way, so it was a reasonable compromise. As for next summer I am planning to take Dawn Treader to the Faeroes for a couple of weeks. Hopefully that will be another story!  Norman ( Dawn Treader )