Hanging In Drangsnes

We declined the 41+km crossing of Hunafloi from Gjogur light to Kaifshamar light or thereabouts largely because we are here to see Iceland not plug away for hours on end with nothing but sea to look at, we can do that at home. Also the weather would need to be perfect and it wasn't. 

The weather forecasts from Icelandic Met Office have been brilliant, generally very accurate, even a few days ahead. This what we look at a couple of times a day.

http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/elements/northwest/

It's very like the Australian Bureau of Meteorology 'Met Eye' except the wind strengths are in meters/second. 1 m/s equals 1.94 knots so easy to convert to the more familiar knots, though we've virtually stopped doing so.

We had hoped to get to Drangsnes on Friday, with northerly winds forecast to give a hoot of a downwind run all the way from our camp in Norðurfjörður. Unusually though, the winds were stronger than forecast, 25+kns and very steep confused seas on top of a 1m swell had us pulling ashore in Kaldbaksvík having covered the best part of 30km in 2 1/2hrs! We know it's windy when things are getting a bit out of control in the double with only one sail up, so down it came and even then we were hitting 10kph at times!

We found a campsite just in case we needed it, had lunch and lounged around for a few hours in the sunshine until sure enough, the sea looked a little less white as the wind eased off a bit. So we continued hurtling south, surfing at times for 100m or more. As the sea built again and maybe the wind picked up, down came the sail again and our frayed nerves calmed as we returned to usual steady paddling rhythm. 

It was still about 15km to Drangsnes and we had to cross Bjarnarfjordur and get around the next point. The sea was not looking any less white so we pulled in to the first beach with some shelter from the wind and some flat ground for the tent.

With a more reasonable strength northerly on Saturday morning and with both sails up it was another fast, but more controlled run, and we were pulling the boat up the beach at Drangsnes at 9.30. 

So here we hang, plenty of time to wash bodies and clothes as from here the crossing of Hunafloi is about 28km and the 20kn northerly doesn't look like abating until Monday night/Tuesday morning.  

Red line 41km crossing of Hunafloi, purple our 28km crossing. Roughly. 

The boon of 24 hour daylight especially as the wind often dies away during the 'night' is that we can just go when the conditions are right and we only need a four hour lull. 

So we've a comfy camp out of the wind, squeaky clean bodies and clothes and free hot tubs right on the shore of the village. 

We're camped in what we've nicknamed the 'Forest of Drangsnes',  some of the biggest trees we've seen out of the city. With the earth bank they make up the windbreak for the campsite, thank goodness!

Yes tacky as hell, but to be fair the little houses are for the elves. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/25/iceland-construction-respect-elves-or-else

Internet trolls eat your heart out, you got nothing on this lot. 

Ah, bliss. One of the luxuries of being ashore near a shop. And no it isn't a Brennivin cocktail. 

The kayak waits on Drangsnes Point. The mountains in the distance, centre, are the next destination, about 28 km.

Hours in the free communal hot tubs on the shore!

Coffee and Seal Flippers

Even though it was some kilometres out of our way the lure of the hot tubs at Reykjarfjordur drew us into the bay. 

A sandy beach on the point before Reykjarfjordur had provided a quick stop for a wee and a few muesli bars as it had been three hours solid paddling from our camp at Hrollaugsvik. The headwind had been intermittent, ranging between unnoticeable to pesky, just our luck to hit a few days of easterly weather pattern just as we turn East. The low overcast sky had slowly cleared from the west so at least we had some grand views of the mountains and the Drangajókull icecap. The forecast for tomorrow is much the same. 

The quick stop was very welcome, a lovely white sand beach in a cove bounded by rocks, very reminiscent of the West Coast of Scotland. The wind had picked up a bit though, probably only 8-10knots and despite the sunshine it was cold, my fingers numb inside my pogies as we paddled away from the beach.

A quick three or four kilometres and we landed next to a little wharf at Reykjarfjordur, and after a quick bite of lunch, we wandered inland, dive-bombed by hundreds of nesting Arctic terns, towards the few houses dotted through the dunes about a kilometre from the beach. The the steam rising off the hot pool was visible long before we reached the houses. At one of the houses two women were busy at large sink. We said our hellos and queried them about the swimming pool and hot tub. "No problem go ahead and help yourself" they replied. By this time though we were intrigued by what they were doing - washing seal skins! They told us later that they hunt only four per summer - the silky soft fur sold for women's handbags. 

There are no words that can describe soaking in water that is just a bit too hot after three weeks kayaking. Lynne left me semi comatose in the small hotter tub and swam lazily around in the larger swimming pool taking pictures. After a while I summoned enough energy to drag my parboiled body out of the tub and laid out on the boards, in the sun, out of the wind, and fell asleep for an hour. 

Eventually we got changed and started back towards the kayak, I still felt so lethargic that I wondered whether I'd make it to the beach let alone paddle the kayak anywhere. A couple sunning themselves in the lee of their house called us over and asked if we wanted 'kaffi'. Of course, thank you! Cake appeared too! The chat soon returned to the seal skins, which then quickly developed to what use was made of the rest of the seal and before we knew it there was a plate on the table with two boiled seal flippers on it and one of the women was slicing pieces off for us to try. 

Coffee, cake and seal flippers, surreal, especially as I was still feeling slightly spaced out from being parboiled. 

Well, I know what you are dying to know - slightly fishy, very fatty and not unpleasant at all. Reminiscent of mutton birds without the red meat and full of little bones. 

Fjallaskagi Lighthouse

After an hour and half or so plodding into a headwind, crawling along the inhospitably rocky southern shoreline of the Þingeyri Peninsula, the hut at Fjallaskagi was just too tempting. 

It had been a grey cold day with poor visibility. Two crossings, of Arnafjordur and Dyrafjordur with nothing else but the compass to look at, and we hadn't stopped much either as once ashore even out of the wind we got cold too quickly. 

The hut was a bit tatty. We'd passed over some sheets of tin from the porch in the shallows as we approached the beach and one of the windows had blown out but we soon made ourselves at home by stringing damp thermals all over the place and putting the billy on. There were beds too, with real mattresses!

The low cloud slowly cleared in the late afternoon/early evening, bathing everything in lovely sunshine though it was still cold in the wind. 

It was a great spot, its remoteness demonstrated by the lack of entries in the hut log book. Only three entries in 2010, only one in 2011, two in 2012, only two again in 2013, one of which was Gudni, one of the paddlers we'd met in Reykjavik on his circumnavigation. 

Gudni's entry in his solo paddle around Iceland. 

There were no entries in 2014 and we were first in 2015. 

The lee side of the Fjallaskagi headland was dotted with the remains of turf huts and boat storage shelters, the low stone walls now well overgrown but in its day it would have been quite a community of incredibly hardy folk. 

The bright orange lighthouse on the point glowed in the low sunlight, so for a short time it became the most photographed lighthouse in Iceland.

We both sheltered in the lee of the tower looking back at the coastline we'd paddled, but hardly seen, earlier that day.  I didn't even try the door, thinking of the signs on similar lights in Australia warning of dire consequences if you so much as think about touching Government property. Lynne did and it opened!

With a whoop of delighted surprise we were in and ascending the three flights of stairs to the small lantern room. Further flurries of photos were taken, of the view of course and the amazing polished glass prisms that magnify the tiny array of halogen globes into a light that according to the chart can be seen from 12 miles away. 

It proved to be a busy night in the Fljallastagi hut - we were the first foreigners and visitors this summer, but only by a matter of hours. At about 3am the crunch of footsteps sounded on the rocks outside. I thought at first it was a dream, but no, there on the doorstep was a young couple who'd had to wait until low tide to get around the shore, 7km from the road end. It would have been bloody hard walking! They were from the Czech Republic and had only one big backpack between them. They started cooking a meal, and after packing away our laundry and drying maps, and gear spread over every surface, Lynne and I went back to bed, despite the glorious pinky orange glow on the snowy mountains in the distance from the low sunlight.  I am sure we disturbed them in the morning as we had breakfast, packed up and left but they didn't move. 

It has been heartening to hear from the locals that we aren't the only ones feeling the cold. Many people were telling us that summer was late, about month late. "Look at all the snow on the mountains" one women had exclaimed "there is not usually anywhere near that amount at this time of year." To be fair though it has been a lot milder the last couple of weeks, perhaps summer has now arrived. We've had some calm warm periods where we've even paddled without pogies, but usually not for long as the slightest of breeze on wet hands chills them very quickly. At times in the sun when there's little wind we've been getting a bit hot and we've started regretting the layers of thermals under the drysuits, then the wind picks up or as has happened now a few times the fog rolls in and all of a sudden we are most definitely not too hot any more.  

The hut (at left), looking back where we'd paddled.

Sunshine and Blue Sky!

Well we've had a wonderful couple of weeks so far, not without its concerns  and hassles which I suppose is expected as you settle into a long trip. My wrist has been the biggest concern. It could have put an end to the trip, but it's settled down and though hasn't gone away completely, with three long days behind us now it's not slowing our paddling down.  The other hassle is our solar charger has stopped working. The 7watt panel out on deck all the time charging a 57Wh battery meant we were self sufficient for charging phones and cameras, but the connector has now corroded. Every town has a campground so now whenever we're ashore for a shower and laundry we'll need to fully charge the two storage batteries we have. 

Since leaving Hellissandur we've had a dream run. Hardly a cloud in the sky and what winds we've had have been sailing breezes. Flat calm seas and morale boosting sun and blue skies have meant a lot of ground covered in the last three days. We arrived in Stykkishólmur mid afternoon with plenty of time to stock up on food and do some laundry. Off early the next morning to cross Breidafjordur, a 60km crossing but the fjord is dotted with islands of all sizes so our island hop across meant our longest stretch was about 16km. The first island an hour out of Stykkishólmur for a quick break, then about two hours to Bjarneyjar, where elevenses stretched to over an hour as we soaked up the sun and explored. A couple of more hours and we landed on Flatey, one of the larger islands which has a permanent as well as a seasonal population. Easily reached by ferry it is also on the tourist trail. We chatted to one of the locals who now only spends the three summer months on the island. She had been collecting eider down from the numerous nests that are scattered across the islands. Once cleaned she said it sells for AU$2,000 a kilo.

The eider ducks are everywhere. Their call, an almost comical camp 'Ooooh! Aaaah!' sounds like a crowd of panto dames watching one of those male stripper shows like the 'Chippendales'.

There are so many eider nests that some days we've actually had trouble finding a spot for the tent equidistant and far enough away from broody females sitting on their four eggs so as not to disturb them unduly. 

We didn't need to paddle all the way to the mainland so camped on a small island Heimaey about 8km offshore. Heading west from there in the morning on flat calm water we both felt we were paddling uphill through treacle so were very pleasantly surprised when we stopped for lunch that we'd covered about 28km. That afternoon, as forecast, the Easterly wind picked up and with both sails up we raced around the coastline of Sigluneshlídar and on to the last little cove and landing point before the Latrabjarg cliffs. 

We were expecting the landing to be tricky as the Southerly swell offshore looked big enough to create some troublesome surf but it couldn't have been easier, the swells just surging up the steep beech and hardly breaking. And even easier, just at the back of the beach from where we landed, the perfect spot for the tent. 

A 15 metre + whale on the beach, far enough away!

Should We Stay Or Should We Go?

The sea kayakers dilemma - to paraphrase The Clash. 

To go or not to go, when the weather and sea conditions could be 'interesting', head bangingly hard work for precious little progress or whatever it is that sows that element of doubt. 

Like my dodgy wrist, how much do I push it, how much paddling is too much? Too much and we could be forced off the water for weeks. Too little and cabin fever would reach boiling point.

Frustratingly, as soon as we finally round the western most point of the Snæfellsness Peninsula, Öndverdarnes,  and reach the small village of Hellisandur, so the winds come around to the NE and pick up to 20kns plus. Plugging into a 20kn headwind isn't much fun at the best of times but in these temperatures the wind chill factor makes it really unpleasant.

As we sit here in Hellissandur drying thermals and having had a lovely hot shower, the first since Reykjavik, it's tempting to move on in the morning and plug away into the wind and at least try to make some progress. But then there's my wrist, still sore but not getting worse. I'm keeping it splinted ashore to rest it as much as possible. 

If it survived the day from Búdir to Hellissandur, the longest so far this trip both in distance and time without any major issues, (I was even able increase the feather on my paddle to 30° and it didn't notice), then just maybe it's less of a factor in the 'go or stay' dilemma. 

We'd left Bùdir at 3.30am Wednesday because of the forecast. It was a particularly uninviting day, grey, cold, 15 kn southerly wind, with poor visibility and a godawful sea once we closed in on the southwestern tip of the Snaefellsness Peninsular. The wind had been southwesterly between 20 and 40kns for the two days off the water at Bùdir and even though the sea had died down a bit the rebound even well offshore was the pits. The 1.5-3m swell also sowed seeds of doubt in my mind as to whether we would be able to land at a little cove and natural harbour called Dritvik. If we couldn't, it was a long long way on or back to the next known landing. I had discovered Dritvik while voyaging safe and sound at home on Google Earth, then the local kayakers Gudni and Gisli had mentioned it as the only landing place  along 40km of rocky exposed shore. The little harbour faced west with a line of rocks extending out to sea from its southern edge just far enough to take the force of the swell then a curl of lava forms an inner harbour, an amazing natural feature into which we thankfully glided. We both felt tired, cold and stressed and very glad to be ashore. It was 8am.

We certainly weren't the only ones to use the shelter of Dritvik. 

The oldest of these 8-oared fishing boats still in existence, "Bliki", in the Maritime Museum in Hellissandur. Built in 1826 of oak, 31 feet long.

Model of these boats at the museum. This was one of the sailing rigs used, others had a simple lug sail.

Dritvik has a bright orange emergency hut for shipwrecked seafarers, within an hour or so we'd pulled the kayak up out of the reach of the incoming tide, had a second breakfast and were curled up fast asleep on our thermarests on the floor of the hut.

 

Öndverdarnes is no place to be on an ebbing tide, particularly given the sea conditions we had - the south westerly flow around the headland hits the SW sea and creates mayhem. So after a morning's snooze, lunch and a bit of exploring we set off again just before 6pm not far off low tide, working on the theory that if the ebb is southerly then the flood will be northerly and we might have tide with us. The conditions had eased and the day had brightened, we were rested and well fed so the 16 or so kms to Ondverdanes didn't seem to take very long and we definitely had some tide helping us along for the last couple of kms.

Rounding the point with about 10 kms to go, the SW breeze picked up, both sails went up and with the flooding tide as well, we scrunched into the sand at Hellissandur at about 9.30pm. 

Storm Bound in Búdir

The first week of a long trip always seems hard work, you're never as paddling fit as you'd like to be. We haven't really done any distance in the kayak since April and the last few weeks before departure plus a few weeks in the UK means a long break from even the shortest of paddles.

Five days from Reykjavk now and the unfamiliar is becoming more familiar, paddling fitness is building and we're becoming accustomed to the cold. I hope! 

The wind and the resultant sea conditions are the same wherever you go but the cold here takes the paddling to another level. Even out of the wind we cool down incredibly quickly when ashore for a wee stop and a bite to eat. We anticipated this and brought a two person zarsky sac (rip stop nylon emergency shelter) and used it for the first time yesterday for lunch. I'd forgotten just how effective they were, within minutes the stuffy heat inside becomes both lovely and almost unbearable. 

The biggest problem so far is my right wrist, I had a niggling pain from only a few hours out of Reykavik then Saturday morning I woke with the wrist really swollen and painful. It was obvious that we weren't paddling anywhere, which given it was a rare clear and sunny day with very light winds was extremely frustrating. 

Snæfellsjökull in the distance. 

The famous Icelandic horses, we saw a number of large herds escorted along the beach at low tide during our sore wrist enforced rest day. 

With anti inflammatories, a splint and a days rest it settled down very quickly. Thanks too to Steffi in Devon who quickly became my personal sports physiologist via FB messenger! 

The wind was forecast to pick up at around midday Sunday so we were on the water at 4am to try and get to a small village Arnastapi at the base of Snæfellsjökull. With my paddle unfeathered I proved its quite possible to complete a days paddle with splinted wrist. 

We didn't make it, the headwind beat us back, so here we sit in the tent for a couple of days at Búdir waiting until Weds and some calmer weather. 

Stormy weather and little shelter for the tent.  

The church at Búdir, one of the oldest in Iceland. 

Let The Adventure Begin

And finally we were off ... the sublime moment. From a casual remark "lets go to Iceland" back in October or November last year, the culmination of hours of research and planning had led us to this little suburban beach about 600m from our accommodation in Reykjavik. Thank you Google Earth.

We dragged the heavy heavy boat to the water's edge and into enough water to float it and us once we had settled into the comfy and oh so familiar cockpits. 

I wondered what the bloody hell we had let ourselves in for the day we had arrived at Keflavik airport. 5° howling wind, low louring clouds and horizontal rain and there's me in sandals and shorts dressed for the hot English summers day we had left behind at Gatwick. For a horrible moment I thought we had to walk to the terminal across the tarmac and wondered whether I'd make it without succumbing to hypothermia.

There followed a very pleasant three days in Reykjavik, dry, warm and sunny. Warm being 15 degs. On Sunday we met up with three members of the local sea kayak club, Gisli, Gudni and Axel. Gisli had already been very helpful by email but it was great to pore over maps, hear stories of their paddling exploits and get the finer detail on the trickier bits of coast. However much remote research can be done there is just nothing as valuable, and pleasant, as meeting face to face with those with the same interest and soaking up as much of their experience as possible. I felt very aware that we were in the presence of Icelandic sea kayaking royalty as both Gisli and Gudni have circumnavigated Iceland solo.

There was nothing in particular that I could put my finger on, but that meeting added to my nervousness about what we had taken on. A certain amount of apprehension is healthy, it keeps you alive, but the changeable weather and the cold added another layer of worry. How far from the nearest landing would we be when the inevitable strong headwind picked up? How much had we just spent to experience days, maybe weeks, of 5° and driving rain? Oh well too late now. 

Once afloat and cruising past the suburbs of Reykjavik, the paddling muscles began warming up and pretty much all those concerns disappeared in our wake. Back on the water, in our element, in a boat we've paddled thousands of kilometres. 

The adventure begins.