Adventure Doldrum

Morning has broken and the current watch is bringing us back to almost where we were before. One night of sailing. Have in minds, nights are currently very short here. We came back to known waters at sunrise. The last watch did a great job sailing us here. And as per decision we are going to Olafsvik, which is basically one town more to the West on the North shore of the Breidafjördur.

Yes, we arrived safely in a harbor. Yes we did some nice sailing. But at the end it was going in the wrong direction, not West but South.

When arriving at a new port there is a bit of sizzling hectic on board as the mates and the team want to find out who the new place has to offer. Where are public heads and where is a shower. How many restaurants, where is the bar, what is the offering of the supermarket and does the place have a swimming pool, hot tub, sauna and cold tub? All very, very important and to an extent life saving.

Olafsvik is the second largest town on the peninsula, a clear upgrade from our provision docking point, which was the third largest town, Grundafjörden. Olafsvik has 1.011 inhabitants, a high street, 1 filling station, one super market, one restaurant open and a swimming pool. So a number of our desperates needs would be covered. But no public heads. But the heads on the boat are not an option.l So we need to find ways to deliver our posh poohs properly. And let em tell you that the crew was very creative finding places. My routine – one hot dog at the filling station and I got my free be delivery on the heads in the station.

But other than that Olafsvik is not really where the world rocks. Clearly this town survives on local business, no cruise ship terminal, no tourist bus station. The focus here is landing and processing fish whenever quota will allow it.

Now in order to give credit to those people living the dream of tourism in Olafsvik we have to mention that it has one major attraction, the heart of the waterfall. The rim of the waterfall gorge form a heart. And so it is an Instagram spot. The town setup a street sign where you must kiss whomever you love for a selfie. For me hard to believe, cars with Chinese pull up in front of the sign giving them the chance for this ultimative experience and life bucket list location.

Once we moored at the fuel dock the harbor master showed up. And it became a disappointing fact for skipper that we would not be able to fuel our boat. The fuel station delivered tax free boat fuel but you need to have special permission and a special card to fuel. Back to coffee than. All of a sudden skipper jumps up We need to move, we need to move. He realized that depth of water was not suffcuient at that mooring. So we moved onto the North wall of the harbor where we should spend the next few days.

By the black building above is the older building of Oslafik. 1892, a fishermen’s shed and today the tourist office.

But the weather, man it sucked. We were locking bat the start every hour. Sunday now and for Monday there was a gale warning out not only for the Danish Street but also for Olafsvik. Lots of wind and my favorite these days, horizontal rain. Impossible really. This is going on for a whole week now and our hopes to get beyond Iceland shrank. The local pool was no compensation at all especially as the pool was full with screaming kids as it was Sunday and really not much to do.#

Deb and Sarah went to a hiking expedition above the Heart Waterfall and they found blueberries. Deb there herself in and offered to make a fresh blueberry cheesecake. Yes, a true highlight that will be memorized forever. But no, not helping is believing that we would see Greenland in the remaining time.

Pool, strolling through town, pool, strolling to the waterfall, pool, hanging around on deck, pool, checking out super market, fuel station, hot dog, posh pooh and back to the pool. No, not an adventures life at all. Skip calculated every possible option. But what could he do? Rain dance? Candle light in church? Praying to common weather physics? I am sure he did all of it. But it did not bloody change our situation.

And I order not to freak out on Monday we made the plan to visit the street art capital of Iceland. Great plan as this was turning into the worts weather day locally. 9 Degrees, horizontal rain, blowing 30 knots plus, white water in the bay. But we needed to do something kind of with the nature of exploration. So Pedro found out that there is a public bus service to Hellisandur. Very reliable and frequent. One bus in the morning and at noon to Hellissandur and one bus back at noon and at 4pm. We found the online ticket app, downloaded and bought tickets. The bus arrived on time. We wanted to check in our tickets but the busdriver smiled, „no not this here“, „no not this“. „Pay“ and pushed the cash machine into our direction. „But we have a ticket man!“. „No not here. Pay!!!! or stay here!!!!!!!“. We paid. It was double the price. And with the pinging noise of his cash card reader a smile hushed over is lips. Yes! Damn tourists.

The ride took 8 minutes along the coast line. We were dropped at the filling station in Hellisandur. Rain. Cold. No, let me correct that, cold cold. On the left of the main road the fisherman museum and the National Park center. On the other side the town. No Icelanders on the road. Just tourists.

The street art is actually quite amazing. Therefore I will just share a number of pictures. The town had invited artist from all over the world to express there vision of street art including a feeling about Iceland. The work turned out to be very impressive.

There is a walkway right on the shore line with massive cliffs on the waterfront side. It offers nice views of the village and the black beaches.

The walk is about only 500 to 700m. This leads to the Eastern border of the town. And there is a historic place, the Keflavik landing. It is a half rounded bay with shelter against Westerly, Southerly and Easterly winds. It was a spot from where fishermen launched rowing boats to go out fishing in the fjord. There are still today the marks in the rock where they pulled the boats in and out of the water. The business was very dangerous and quite a substantial number of men were lost over decades. But it was all you could do here to survive during those times.

Trolling beyond this point of Keflavik landing I walked straight into a breeding place of Arctic Swallows and Sea Gulls. I got really excited watching them feed their new borns in a restless effort.

And they had an eye on me all the time.

They also had trouble amongst themselves battling out who owned the fish.

On my way back to the filling station I enjoyed the views of a remarkable landscape and scenery. The light basically changes by the hour. And things you spotted in one second might look different in the next.

We made it back. The bus was on time at 4pm by the minute. Same driver. I showed my pre paid ticket and a smile just went over his face with a very clear instruction, „pay or walk!“. And the ping on the cash machine released his happiness. Again double the price.

If you talk to seafarers crossing the equator they will tell you that the doldrums will have an end at one time no matter how long they will last. We had decided to walk out and eat together in the one and only open restaurant run town. Skip, who stayed on board all the time, declared on our return back, that the low has finally moved East allowing us to move on to West. His proposal was to head off next morning and sail the next 4-5 days continuously to the coast of Greenland and back trying to see some ice. Yeeeeeeessssss, saiiiiiiiillng!!! Finally we had a plan. Yes it might get a little uneasy for the less experienced to live over a longer period in a watch system in the cold. But finally we were back in exploration mode.

By the way dinner was incredible. On my table we had haddock. Man these Icelanders know how to prepare fish. A couple of guys had fish soup and we licking their lips. Good food as an intro into a good start tomorrow. Breakfast, shave, shit, shower, the famous triple S, and off we go. No, there was one thing in the way. Refuel. Remember, we could not fill her up on the fuel pontoon. All the attempts to get us a full truck with a small hose failed. So we needed to fill CV11 up with jerry cans. The filing station was about 600m away from the boat. We had 4 jerry cans with 20l each. Skip reckoned that we needed 400l of fuel. So 5 trips. But man 600m with 20kg+ could wear us out. So we had the plan top borrow shopping from the super market, to trolley the jerry cans. I went up there asked the cashier and she freaked out. „No, you cannot have it. What will you do? Who says you will come back?“ Shit! „Please, whom can I ask to borrow a trolley?“ A dark grimm Icelandic face responded „You must ask the boss!!“. And there he was and said generously that we do not need s a shopping cart. He will drive us and the cans and as much as we needed it. Amazing.

After the successful refueling we had everything on board to make our journey. Sails were rigged, crew was in gear, navigation done, all fees paid. So skip was ready to slip lines on the hour of the planned line slipping when a hotel head request came in. Yes, timing sometimes is everything. The request was granted, we waited and when all were on deck again we slipped lines – Westwards – finally. Greenland here we come.

We took a last site of Snæfellsjökull mountain with its magnificent glacier, but hopefully for the last time. Yes, an majestic view as he was without clouds for the first time.