A day of relaxing

I spent my last day in Iceland around Reykjavik. A sightseiing takes in this village (pop. 110000) max 2 hours.The most famous monument is its modern church on a hilltop.

I went shopping in a mall and tried to figure out why everybody likes the puffin. I found a book in a shop, which explains it very well in a single sentence.

In the evening I used the guesthouse facilities to prepare for the long trip. What I made in 10 days on a yacht, I´ll do in 3 hours tomorrow.

Tomorrow I´m going to fly out in the early morning and finally sleep again in my sweet home...

Reykjavik fine dining

They say that Reykjavik is famous about its quality restaurants and fine foods.

So we went for a culinary exploration in the evening and were dining in a fancy restaurant of a hotel. I think I´ve never eaten a better tourist menu like the one there.

Lobster bisque

Smoked arctic char tartar and tuna fish with dill mayonnaise, pickled cucumber and foie gras

Smoked puffin and cured goose with deep fried cheese beet root jam and rye bred

Lightly seared minke whale and slow cooked salted icelandic horse with pumpkin sauce, root vegetables and iceland moss glace

Slow cooked lamb fillet and lamb confit with langoustine, potato purée and thyme sauce

Licorice flavored chocolate cake with strawberries and peach sorbet

Waffle with strawberry ice cream and baileys ice cream with skyr panna cotta and pashion

Heading to the capital (14th day)

In the morning we were hiking up on the volcano with a professional guide, just to be sure we are safe on the mountain.

Quite a big area was covered with fresh ash and the mountain was in clouds, because of heating the air around.

 

On the way to Reyjavik we stopped in Gejsir. The village got its name from the hot water errupting formations. Unfortunatelly the main Gejsir doesn not work anymore because earlier tourists trhough to much stone and coins in it.

On the way to Reykjavik I came across a toy car. People use this kind of cars on the highlands. Look at in picasa the pictures for the wheel size. It is amazing, like my Hyundai....

Driving to the south...(13th day)

We left early morning and were heading to Reykjavik and Skogar; a village close to that volcano, which made some troubles recently. We drove trough breathtaking landscapes and huge empty spaces.

Our first stop was in Glaumbaer with turfhouses; typical home for the first settlers living on Iceland. In the church of the village there is statue for Snorie Dorfindson, the first Europaen born in north america in 1003 and lived later in Iceland. Oficially America was discovered first by C. Columbus in 1492.

Our second stop was Surtshellir with its lava tubes. It is a highly active volcanic area, where the new lava was erroding a several km long lava tunel in the old lava. You are free to walk in this tubes....

In the evening we arrived after 750km in Skogar, which is on the south cost; close to Eyjafallajökull; the recently air traffic limiting volcano.

New videos

Akureyri night life

Akureyri at midnight

Volcano in Myvatn

Dettifos

Mud hole

Steam

Ice and fire(13th day)

After the grill and some wine yesterday, I had a really good sleep and wake up first at 10a.m. We started the day in a quite special restaurant for a cheesecake and a latte. There is only a glas between the stall of the cows and the restaurant itself, so you can see how your milk is done. You can sit out on the terrace as well and wonder the lakes of Myvatn.

Our first hike of the day was around a volcano crater, some 200m high and 600m in diamater. It was really nice and sunny, about 24C the whole day.

After walking around the rim of the crater we moved on to the Krafla area, which is a geologically very active area, with thermal lakes mud pots and sulfuric steams coming to the ground all over the pathways.

It is a very intresting volcanic land with a lot of danger and close to zero gravity. I could even hold a 40kg rock with only two fingers:)

For the rest of the pics see as usual the quick links....

Exploring the north of Iceland(12th day)

Today we got up early and drove to Dettifos, the biggest waterfall of Iceland in terms water flow. It is about 40 m high and 300m3 water is falling down in the canyon in every second. It is nice that you can go as close as you wish, nobody is holding back to jump you in the water.

After that we drove to Husavik; a small village on the coast, which is famous about its whale watching tours and the world only  penis museum. There is exhibited the most precious part of all males of some 200 species.

Above is the penis of a blue whale. According to Lonely Planet, the whale watching business is bringing the same amount of money as hunting would bring for Iceland, therefore it is better to show them instead to eat. I would say show and eat them as well...

We continued the day in Myvatn national park with a lot of hiking, wondering the lakes and several volcanic formations.

At the end of the day we went to a gethermal bath, which is quite similar to the Blue lagoon in the south they say. It was a a really nice pool with strongly sulfurous water of about 40 C.

We stayed in a cabin for the night and had a nice grill in the midnight sun. Tomorrow we going to continue hiking in the area.

For more geotagged nature photos, please click on the quick links on right or below;

http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/52567

http://picasaweb.google.de/szaipandras/Icelandmainland#

A start of a culinary and nature exploration

I m going to start a new section of the trip now. "Iceland main land"

To give it a good start we went out in Akureyri to have a nice dinner. I had of course a whale steak and some nice chocolate cake and an art cappucino after. 

Tastes like horse meat, I would have expected something more special...

The service and quality in Iceland is really excellent.

The latest route update  of the sealing route and geotagged pics (except last stage) are available under;
http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/52111


All pics in picasaweb;
http://picasaweb.google.de/szaipandras/Iceland02#

All of above also available under the quicklinks on the right.

A good hope to arrive (11th day)

We were on "watch" from 3 a.m. and could see some whales in the sunrise. We had no wind at all, so we sailed on engine.

Early afternoon we arrived at the entrance of the fjord which brought us after 30 miles to Akureyri at 14p.m. Akureyri is the most important village in the north of Iceland (pop 12500). The local people seem to be really kind and having a good sense for cars. See them below...

Tomorrow we going to start our trip in Iceland and go by car to Reykjavik in the south..... Tomorrow is independence day here in Iceland; which means a lot of drinks and partying all night. Don´t forget it does not come dark at all during these weeks of the summer.

New day new plan (10th day)

13 p.m. I had already reception on my mobile, which means we approaching the costs of Iceland. Although this is a good news, we are still in delay. Therefore we won´t stop in Husavik, but go directly to Akureyri. It is a really good news, because we will have the time explore Iceland in 5 days by car. I´m really freezing by now and my only wish is to have a hot shower and a stable bed. I am so exhausted, because of the night "watches" and the cold moisture that I can sleep in any position at any time by now.

In the evening we crossed the arctic circle and had a small celebration. We have over 1000 seamiles behind us and only an other 100 to go to Akureyri, our final destination. Expected arrival is 14p.m. tomorrow.

Speed on open see (9th day)

Finally we have good wind coming from SW, which helps us to do 9 sometimes speeds of 10 knots. The whole day nothing happened, we met only a long distance fishing ship.

I tried to make some artistic pics about the sun and the sea, which you can see on picasaweb (quicklink on right)

Leaving the Faroers (8th day)

A part of the crew went last night to explore the local pubs, therefore we left first in the afternoon. Luckilly we had the tide and currents from behind between the island passages and we made good speed. We sailed through the straight of gods; with 500-600m peaks on both sides.

This area is so windy that people have to anchor even their houses with ropes. Zoom in the pic below and have a look...

videos

I uploaded some videos on youtube;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFxj-racTo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhQ1rRBfwCA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NjQNUigXpc

have fun....

Torshavn (7th day)

Early morning we were sailing to Torshavn, the capital of the Faroers. After arriving early afternoon, we had some time to explore the village.

Tomorrow we leave to Iceland, facing the longest leg of the trip.
I´sorry for the short posts, but I have only limited internet connectivity. I hope to add more infos to my postings when arriving on Iceland, hopefully in 3-4 days.

Storm (6th day)

We expected to arrive in the afternoon on the Faroers, but because of the wind was easing, we lost serious time. In the afternoon we had a strom with windforce 8 (look at the photos on picasa) and arrived late in the evening on the southest island of the Faroers.

Leaving Shetland and facing the Faroer (5th day)

Today in the morning we had to leave early, because a cruise ship was scheduled to arrive and take our anchoring place. It was a cruise from a german company Aida with full of retired people looking for an "adventure" on see. It was funny to see them arriving and taking pictures about everything including us of course. Some of them choose golfing as a day program, some took a bus tour around the island. As a reception everybody got a handshake from a lady on shore dressed in traditional clothes and some girls were playing violin to impresse the visitors.

On the way too Faroer with sailed along the costs of Foula, which has vertical cliffs of more than 300m high. They said us those are the highest in Europe, which I doubt but it was still impressive.

There are two families living on the island; imagine the people living there, how happy they were as we approached their territory. I don´t publish further details; we only watched the nesting birds on the cliffs.

During the night watch, we had some strong wind and did even 10 knots sometimes.

I updated the posts of the last 4 days and the link to my gps position.

You can either click on a photo to show it on the map or to zoom in google maps and look at the photos along my route.

http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/51925


or click on the pic below



If you wish only to see the pictures; visit my picasa website;

http://picasaweb.google.de/szaipandras/Iceland02#

Exploring the Shetlands

In the morning we got up really early and tried to rent a car. All 3 companies we went were sold out. It seems the Shetland is a really touristic island:). At the end we called a company from a local tourist guide and we were lucky; the guy came and picked us up in the harbour. At 10 a.m. we were on our way to the southest point of the island where is a natural reserve located for nesting puffins.

After that we drove to spiggie beach, which is on of the sandy beaches in whole Europe having sea around from both sides. Probably at full moon, the whole beach is disappearing below the water.

There are really remote places on the island, it was really nice to be alone and feel myself close to everything not human. I had the same feeling like last year in Argentina and continued the Gerald Durell series..:)

For further pics see the picasa link, I think they speak for themselves...

Tomorrow we heading up to the Faroer Islands, which will take most probably 1,5-2 days. The days will getting longer, water and weather colder:(

History of the "Polar bear"

Our yacht is a custom built former racing yacht, built in 1999 to partcicipate the BT-challenge first in 2000.

There are only 9 other yachts of that type built ever; all for the same race. The BT-challenge is the only world
around race, which goes in the "wrong" direction. That means all the way against the ruling winds, so if you wish to follow, you haveto turn to the right; direction Cape Horn after crossing the equator. (The first cicrcumnavigation in that direction in solo sailing happened first in 1971.)
To be able not only participate but also to finish such a race you need a very solid shiphull. Compared to a regular race yacht (composite) Polar bear is built of steal and stainles steal and weights close to 70tonns. Only its boom and main sail is close to 1000kg.

Originally for the race in 2000 there were 18 crew members reqruited. It absolved the race in 168 days. After reconstructing some parts it absolved the race again in 2004. In 2005 the yacht was equipped with roll sails and some other instruments to make it possible Dee Cafari to sail the yacht alone; instead of 18 crew member. She became history as she circumnavigated the earth in 2006 at the age of 33 in the wrong direction in only 178 days.

Our present skipper Andy Dare was skipper on the yacht during the year 2000 race.

His experience is far enough for our small trip now, just above the artic circle:)

3rd day (Arriving to Shettland)

Today it was time to arrive to Shetland, what I was really waiting for....We spotted land around 11a.m. cruised around the island a bit and arrived in the harbour around 6p.m.

Shetland is quite an isolated island with a lot of nature. Its cliffs are optimal for nesting birds. Already on the day of arrival using the fresh winds we were sailing along the Island of Noss and looking at the birds on the 100+ m high cliffs.

In the evening we went to the local pub, where scottish life music was played by the official "grand orchestra" of the island.

We going to stay there a full day...
Tomorrow we´ll probably rent a car and explore the island and its remote corners. As I´am writing this blog it is already 11p.m. and the sun is still shining over the horizon.