Thursday 31st July - on to an anchorage
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Thu 31 Jul 2014 20:27
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The day got off to a slow start - given our late night cooking and
supper this was hardly surprising but also because the wind died away
overnight and we woke to flat calm and blue skies. We'd also managed
to
pick a very quiet corner of the harbour - not entirely the right one as it
turned out
later. The chores and stores were calling so after a slight issue of
working
out how to leave the secure dock we were on, (our neighbour in the
live-aboard catamaran came to our rescue) we headed to the bright lights.
This
involved walking most of the way around the port towards the new
shiny
opera house building and the Reykjavik (Brokey) yacht club. After
several
false starts we found the local equivalent of an Aldi grocery for
veg,
bread etc, and on the way back just had to stop and try the local beer
and
fish soup (very good and not as expensive as we'd feared).
On the harbour wall are several large billboards showing maps (grouped in
~20 year periods) of all
the wrecks around Iceland since the 18th century up to the present day.
Not
a comforting sight, given we were heading out for the fjords to the north
a
bit later.
 People have been all very friendly; a passing motorboat tour
operator suggested we try the yacht club when we come back and on our
way
out of the outer harbour past the cardinal buoy we were passed by the
same fisherman as yesterday - who actually went out of his cabin and
waved enthusiastically as he shot past us. A nice salute.
The wind was dead on the nose for heading up the fjord. However
the chance to tack her backwards and forwards across this wide stretch
of
water meant that we were made more aware of the size and splendour of
the
hills and glacial valleys to each side. The waves were kind to us as
well
being about half the size or less than yesterday and the winds
peaking
around 29 - 30 knots and mostly a great deal lower. We set half the
yankee,
the staysail and one reef in the main and were zooming back and forth
at around 7 knots under blue skies and brilliant sunshine. We were not
the
only ones enjoying the water and weather; - we were adopted by a
young
fulmar who made several circuits of the boat - coming closer each time.
At
the last pass he '? ) was about a foot off the comms post and was
actually
over the deck where side slipping past the forestay he made a mistake
and
was sucked in between the yankee and the staysail and spat out in some
disorder.
After that he still hung around but not quite so close. A pity
because we
were going
to try and hand feed him biscuits on his next pass.
 The scenery is enormous - big open valleys and moraine hills terminating
in
steep cliffs - a sort of cross between north Norway and Svalbard (hardly a
surprise) and the west
side of Mull. This country is obviously more settled though being just an
hour
from the capital city and there's even a motorway tunnel under the
fjord.
We saw no other yachts however, despite the great conditions and it being
the start of
a bank-holiday weekend . The wind was cold r and as the sun set we wrapped
up warmly for another 2 1/2
hours to our chosen anchorage - a naturally sheltered bay to the south
of
the fjord near it's head, called Hvammsvik. To reach the anchorage you have
to make a 180
degree pass around an island - this protecting the southern shore from
the
gusts of wind across the open water (and probably katabatically down
the
hillsides opposite as well).
Using the chart plotter as back up we anchored in 11.5 m of water using 45
m
of chain. After seeing gusts of 27 knots come across the bay we
increased
this to 55m. Not being wet like yesterday the boat was already a warm
haven
and we had (for us) an early supper at around 9:30 pm. We're anchored
under
some dramatic cliffs and there appears to be a hot spring on the beach
if
the steam is anything to go by so tomorrow's exploring promises much.
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