Sudavik 66:02.2N 22:59.2W
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Thu 17 Jul 2008 00:09
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People ask "Are the Icelanders friendly?" Um
- yes.
We came into Sudavik after a "much too exciting"
day and waved at a man cleaning a motor boat, to ask if we could park at the
pontoon he was on.
He waved back to indicate the end, so we went round
to try, but the place he had meant looked a little short. He
pulled two other boats round from the hammerhead across the pontoon end and we
went in there. By now we had realised that all the boats were the same, it
was a sport fishing company.
 Here is the notice at the other
end.
If you can read the bottom line it
says:
"This dock is only for sea angling
boats"
and we are at the other end where he tied us
up.
Talking to him later, he had spent 30 years fishing
including landing fish in Grimsby and now looked after this business with 13
boats, generally for German fishermen. His
wife turned up and we showed them inside our boat and later a couple more
locals turned up, who came on board to look. We had a small gas bottle standing in the corner of the cockpit and
I asked whether we would be able to change it in
Sudavik. Out comes the mobile
phone, a discussion shows gas is available, I was taken up the pontoon to a
proper large-tyred Icelandic pick-up truck.
Round to the local supermarket where the owner had
been summoned out. He seemed quite relaxed about coming out at 8pm.
The gas bottle was swapped and paid for and back we went to the
boat. On the way fishing was discussed, my kind friend has a
small 8m boat, but had not been out that day. Another call and I
was taken round to a fish box on the quay and a cod pulled out. Lorna had
the camera out, look:
 Fish and gas.
So yes, definitely
friendly.
The "much too exciting day" had started
with leaving Isafjordur and the skipper trying to radio the harbour to
advise that we were leaving. I failed
to navigate at the same time and we were on the shore, stuck in the mud, a
little too firmly. The tide was going down
and we expected to wait until it came up, when we would float again.
A sailing school rib came across, took our line and
pulled us round towards the channel, but could not pull us off. Never
mind, only a couple of hours to wait. No, that is a small tug coming
across from the dock opposite. He pulled us off without difficulty, thank
goodness we were turned round as he could easily have pulled out any of our
cleats if we had stuck.
After that we motored out on a calm sunny morning
and did see one porpoise some way off. We landed on an island, by which
time the wind had got up and the berth was anything but
comfortable. After a short walk we motored back out through the
rocks. Funny how nervous of rocks, running aground in the morning makes
you. So we ended up at 7pm in Sudavik.
Fish supper tomorrow.
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