Around the Western Fjords

Skipper's Update

Lionel H - 24/06/26

In Akureyri we hired a car for a day to explore a little of the interior, see a waterfall (Godafoss), some geothermal bubbles and smoke (Hverir) and to circumnavigate Lake Mývatn. Then we lost Charles for a while and gained Diana van der Klugt, so there was an improvement in cleanliness; corporal and mental.

Akureyri lies at the head of a 30 mile fjord and it was unfortunate, if somewhat inevitable, that having had to motor into a stiff headwind to get there, we had a headwind all the way out too. Hrisey Island provided a welcome break on the way out and we enjoyed walking under terns, snipe and redshanks. Many eider and guillemots were on the water.

In Siglufjordour were two small French yachts and Endeavour, a British Garcia 55 last seen in Torshavn, moored behind us. We had dinner with her owners who are going the same way as us, two-handed. Cultural exercise was given over to a thorough understanding of the herring fishing and processing industry. A messy business!

Thereafter some spectacular anchorages in increasingly remote fjords. I wrote in the log book that superlatives were beginning to fail me and after a while we almost became blazé about fjords, towering cliffs, mountains with snow down to the waterline, glaciers, grassy lowlands, beaches and masses of sea birds, soaring by the cliffs and paddling in the water.

The most spectacular anchorages were in the Western Fjords at the NW tip of Iceland. In Nordourfjordur we found a harbour that wasn’t even on the charts and we got warm for the first time in ages in a thermally heated swimming pool on the beach. The water was coming in at 40 degrees c.

Here the road finishes and the northern tip, Hornstrandir, is uninhabited. There are dramatic 500m. cliffs on the east side of the Horn with birds everywhere. The Horn is at 66.28 north, a considerably higher latitude than the other Horn (55.58 south)! The bay where we anchored, Hornvik, is open to the north, so we saw the sun not setting.

The best anchorage was in Hesteyrarfjordur, which runs the north off Jokulfirdir. The fjord narrows to a steep sided finish, with snow to the waterline, a loud waterfall to one side and a long ascent up the mountain at the head, with masses of eider all around us. Absolute solitude in stunning surroundings; bliss; but chilly. I have tremendous respect for the Vikings and early Norse settlers. It is cold enough here at midsummer!

Back to the bright lights in Isafjordur, where we shared the pontoon with the same two French boats. We missed the eagerly awaited rendezvous with SY Louise RYS as they had to push on ahead of strong easterly winds forecast. We did, however meet, dine and lunch with her crew; the Rear Commodore of the St Mawes SC, no less; Ian Reid and his wife Pamela. Here we celebrated Iceland’s Independence Day by dressing overall (nobody noticed) and we swapped Kees and Diana for Charles Fowle and Charles Outhwaite, who came back with a new pump for our Ebersbacher heater. Despite the best (and expensive) efforts of an engineer we still have no heating. It was very cold in Isafjordur and all round the Western Fjords. We can heat the saloon with an electric heater when we are connected to shore power or when we run our generator. We are very grateful to have an indoor cockpit. Outside the temperature was about 6 c. made colder by a ferocious wind chill at times. Meanwhile we hear of a heatwave at home.

More beautiful mountains, cliffs, fjords, guillemots, puffins, terns, dolphins and pilot whales, were seen heading south and we were at anchor in a north facing bay for midsummer; celebrated the Icelandic way; by eating fermented shark meat (Hakarl) v. smelly and drinking Icelandic spirit (Brennivin), strong. The tradition of taking a skinny-dip under the midnight sun was maintained (by the skipper).

Coming around the SW peninsula we could see the ice cap of Snaefellsjökull, a dormant volcano 1,500 metres high, from all points of the compass and we spent a peaceful night at anchor under its SE slopes. It could be seen all the way to Reykjavik 60 NM away.

We enjoyed one day of good tail wind sailing; but sadly we have had to motor far too much of recent days, in no wind. The last two days to Reykjavik were entirely under power. It is getting warmer. 12-16 degrees; gloves off.

The Outhwaite bros. continue to perform miracles in the galley. Our cod tally is now 4.
We have eaten all of Mr Gosselin’s soft cheese; but his wines are lasting. Charles has arranged a new delivery of wine to meet us in Reykjavik. I wonder if it will clear customs. We will also need about 1000 litres of diesel. Ouch!

We have not yet broken into the St Vaast 5kg lump of Beaufort or the not much smaller lump of smoked meat.

In Reykjavík, we will abandon the boat for 48 hours to go and try to catch some salmon.
Mark has removed the Ebersbacher to send it for a re-furb. Tim Fooks will join us and the ice maps of E Greenland look good; so the next stage will take us across the Denmark Straight to a Greenland landfall at Tasilaq; we hope.