by Paul Heiney
On the way back to the table, where Malcolme was sitting waiting, tongue out like a hungry dog, I did a rough mental calculation. The blood may have drained from my face in shock. It couldn’t be! Surely she’d got the decimal point in the wrong place, or something.
‘Hey, Malcolme,’ I said. ‘Enjoy! This soup is 13 bloody quid a bowl!’
‘You’ve been ripped off, mate,’ he spluttered, hardly interrupting his aggressive slurping.
In fact, I hadn’t, because the price was marked on a board over the counter and I’d paid twice what it said. How was I to know that pounds sterling were worth less than lavatory paper in this country? We sipped it very slowly to ensure not a moment’s pleasure was wasted, then took chunks of bread and wiped the bowls to ensure the last drop, as valuable as liquid gold to us, was not missed. It’s not as though it was special, either – essentially, a rather thin lamb stew. It was going to be rusty Heinz from now on. That didn’t go down well with the crew either.
***
As we were entering Iceland for the first time we needed our passports stamping, and shortly after we returned to the boat a young police officer came down the wooden walkway. He was, in fact, the island’s only officer and was standing in for the customs man who normally did the passport business. He gave our passports a quick look-over, showing little interest, then pulled out from a case a large and complex-looking rubber stamp and was about to place it heavily on each of them. Then he paused, turned the stamp towards him, and said, ‘It’s showing the wrong date. It’s got the date of when the previous yacht came through.’
‘Problem?’ I asked.
‘Yep, it’s not my stamp and I don’t know how to change it. When are you leaving?’
I told him we’d stay a day or more and he said he would be back the next day when he’d figured it out.
In the meantime, we set our minds to retrieving the wayward rope and fitting from the top of the mast, which would allow us once again to hoist the headsail. As we were pondering this and not coming to any obvious solution, a substantial yacht powered into the harbour, overflowing with young and active Americans – several blokes and one woman. They saw us spending some time looking at the top of the mast, to the heavens, seeking divine inspiration. Malcolme had this ambitious idea that he could get one of the other halyards to wrap itself round the fitting if he tied a sort of noose in it, and then he could lower the wayward one back down to the deck. He thought he’d try, anyway.
‘Hey, you guys,’ said a somewhat forceful woman, cocking her leg over the guard wires and on to my deck as if she owned the place. ‘Problem?’
I explained we were trying to retrieve a fitting without having to climb to the top of the mast.
‘OK, you guys. Leave it to me. I’m a rigger, you know.’
Malcolme took this personally. His engineer’s ingenuity had devised a way of doing it and, remembering he is a Geordie with a strong mind of his own, wasn’t going to have some big-mouthed Yankee woman stealing his glory.
‘No thank you,’ he said patiently, and explained his strategy.
‘Won’t work, betcha,’ she snapped.
That went down well.
By now, Malcolme had created the noose with which to capture the errant fitting and was cautiously hauling it upwards. Me, him, her and the entire crew of this yacht gazed skywards as if seeking the Second Coming.
The first time he tried it, the loop slipped. And the second time. The audience were now shifting from foot to foot and I was beginning to look the other way. I wondered if they were enjoying Malcolme’s apparent failure? On second thoughts, I got a strong impression that they might have had enough of that loud-mouthed American ‘rigger’, and were praying she might be wrong.
On the third attempt, he caught it. Heavens be praised. They cheered like a football crowd and casually, and with great style, Malcolme lowered the fitting and its rope back down to the deck, ready to be reattached to the sail.
He didn’t say anything and neither did I. We thanked them all for their offer of help and quietly walked away, as if this was the sort of thing we did every day.
***
There were several restaurants here to feed a growing tourist trade, most of them beyond our pockets. I spotted minke whale on the menu of one, but no puffins. Worryingly, there were none in the sky, and we hadn’t seen a single one when we were at sea. But if there are eight million puffins here, known as prófastur, which means ‘preacher’, because of the way they appear to be dressed, you’d have thought I’d have bumped into at least one while doing the shopping. I started to become uneasy about puffins: none seen in the Farne Islands, Orkney or Faroes, and all these were supposed to be puffin hotspots. Had they gone into extinction already? I was growing uneasy about what the future held for the puffins of the North Atlantic.
It seems my fears were real ones. The puffin population back home on the Farne Islands has declined by 12 per cent in five years, one island down 42 per cent, which goes some way to explaining why they were far less evident than I hoped. Perhaps the problem is that the poor little puffin seems to have so many enemies. At sea, the menace might be oil spills or a simple lack of fish to feed on, due to fundamental changes in sea temperature. Storms are getting worse too, and, remembering that puffins spend the entire winter in the North Atlantic Ocean, losses can be tremendous. A succession of storms one winter caused the bodies of 54,000 seabirds to be washed up on the North Atlantic coasts, many of them puffins. They’re not even all that safe on land. They prefer to build their burrows a way back from cliff edges to make them less attractive to the black-backed gulls and herring gulls, but this makes them more vulnerable to land-based enemies such as rodents, weasels and foxes. Arctic skuas will steal food destined for puffin chicks. Iceland’s politicians are now asking for more data on puffin populations and calling for action, as they always do without having a clear idea of what action might help. As I write this, I hear on the radio that puffin numbers back on the Farne Islands are once again much reduced after torrential spring rainfall washed chicks out of their nests.
At least here, on the Vestmann Islands, they are kind to them. The authorised hunting season now lasts for only a week, and when the date is officially announced it comes with an urgent plea for no one to take part. Even those who might once have bagged a few for fun no longer hunt the puffins. It is traditionally done with a large hand net called a hafar and the practice of netting is called fleyging. The nets, attached to the end of long poles, are flailed around in the clifftop air as the puffins fly, rather like catching butterflies. These days it is only done for the shortest period of time while catching the minimum number of birds to keep the tradition alive. The fact that these people, who have caught puffins for generations, feel the need to rein back, or give up hunting completely, suggests they believe puffins might be on the way out. If they take it seriously, then so must we.
This generosity shown to the puffins by the islanders goes even further, especially among the children. The months of August and September are a difficult time for young puffins, which are charmingly called ‘pufflings’ or pysja in Icelandic. By now, their parents have stopped bringing them food and so they have to go in search of their own. They get terribly lost, poor little things. Sensing that food must come from the sea, it is thought they navigate there by following the moon or the stars. The problem is that to a young puffin that has never done it before, the bright lights of the town are more attractive than the more distant and uncertain moon. So they end up on pavements and streets where they might get run over, or in gardens where cats lurk.
The children sort life out for them. They are allowed to stay up late at night during those two late summer months and roam the town with a cardboard box, rescuing chicks that have lost their way. It’s called the Puffling Patrol, or the Pysjas Patrol. Each child might save as many as three or four in one night. They transport them home and the next morning they take them down to the open sea, open the boxes and throw the puffli
ngs into the air. By this stage in their lives, the puffins are good swimmers, if not flyers, but soon get the hang of what survival is all about. If they are judged to be not fit enough for that giant leap, they are brought to the island’s Natural History Museum, where they are fed and watered till they are strong enough for what is going to be the biggest adventure of their lives. Typical teenagers, I suppose; kicked out of the house, no idea where to go, not much clue about life, so they go and hang around on street corners getting into trouble. Around 5,000 young puffins are saved by children every year. There is something about this that brings a tear to the eye.
The puffins will have seen nothing of the daylight for 40 days as they lurk in the depths of the nest, being fed and getting fat. They do need to exercise their wings to gather strength for the eventual flight and this they do on moonless nights, when predators are less likely to pick them off. Those who have seen the pufflings leave the nest for the first time tell how the chick moves instinctively towards the water and finds a tall rock on which to scramble. They will stand there for at least five minutes, preparing themselves for their destiny. They rock to and fro as if nerving themselves up for the flight, not rushing it, and then they will summon up all the power they have and beat their wings till they take flight for the first time. And then they are off, at the mercy of the North Atlantic Ocean. Brave little souls, more pluck than me.
***
The policeman returned the next morning.
I asked him about the puffin hunt.
He laughed. ‘There are huts on the outlying island where the hunters go. They don’t do any hunting, but lots of drinking.’
I produced our passports yet again.
‘I rang the customs officer,’ he said proudly. ‘The stamp now shows today’s date.’
Then he faltered.
‘Oh, shit,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t stamp them with today’s date because you arrived yesterday, eh?’
‘Can you turn it back a day?’ I asked.
‘Yes, you can, but I don’t know how.’
I could see that there might be no end to this. ‘Shall we pretend we arrived today, then?’ I suggested.
‘OK. What the hell.’ And with the flourish of a man relieved, the ker-chunk of his impressive official seal was imprinted on our documents and we had officially arrived in Iceland.
I noticed that alongside the harbour, old industrial buildings were being pulled down and new buildings being thrown up as if the future was entirely secure. I suppose if you live on a volcano, a certain amount of optimism is high on the list of requirements.
We finished supper and I said to Malcolme, ‘We’ll leave at midnight and then we’ll be in Iceland tomorrow evening.’
Unusually, he never replied.
BLANK.
11
Land ahoy? No, volcanoes
Ten o’clock that evening and still clear daylight. They say that in Iceland in the summer you can play golf at midnight and still get a tan. I can’t stand hanging around. Impatience overtook me as it always does, and Malcolme knew full well that it would.
‘To hell with it,’ I said. ‘Let’s bugger off. I’m not waiting till midnight.’
With great glee, Malcolme produced a piece of paper on which he’d written similar words some hours before.
‘I knew it, ‘ he said, laughing his head off. ‘I knew you’d say that! You always do.’ He was as chuffed as a dog with two tails. He was getting to know me too well, which can be dangerous, for if a skipper has one secret weapon, even if rarely deployed, it is the element of surprise.
If the Vestmann Islands are part of a new and still developing volcanic world, then so is the whole of Iceland in terms of its society. It is well known that the Vikings, bringing with them some Norwegian, British and Irish blood, first populated the place in the 9th century and were governed under complex laws but with no individual ruler. Read the sagas to get an idea of the bloody and violent life this led to. In around 1400, Norway, Denmark and Sweden formed an alliance under a monarch, from which Denmark rose to the position of greatest power, giving Iceland effectively Danish rule, and over the subsequent centuries reduced Iceland to an impoverished land where famine and epidemics were common; and all this against a turbulent backdrop of volcanic explosions that made any kind of stable way of life problematical.
Somehow, the Icelanders came through it, developed a sense of pride, and in the 19th century were talking of hitherto alien ideas, such as nationalism. They demanded a new government and got it, achieved Home Rule in 1904 and full independence in 1944. Their history is long, but the modern Iceland is a quite recent invention, created largely by a population determined to improve their lot and educate their children, leading to a highly literate society today.
In the twilight that passes for night at these latitudes, we had a gentle passage north-westwards to sail just 70 miles to the south-west tip of Iceland, the Reykjanes Peninsula, at which point we would turn to the north-east and head in the rough direction of the capital, Reykjavík. I would not pretend that all nights at sea are magical, but this one was. To see the outline of a passing whale break the gleam of the rising moon on the surface of the sea is a memory to be banked for endless future enjoyment. I noticed too that I spotted the loom of a distant lighthouse, the first I’d seen for weeks, and a sure sign that the nights were lengthening and the season up here was beginning to turn. The lighthouses do not burn on midsummer nights.
By lunchtime the next day we were less than 15 miles off the coast and a low smudge the colour of charcoal was clearly visible on the horizon. This was Iceland. We saw no green, as you expect to see on hills. No forest, nothing much. Certainly no ice. Instead we saw mountains, not shaped like crags but geometrically conical. Others looked like boiled eggs with the tops cut off. Volcanoes of various ages, some in working order, some retired, some just waiting their chance. For a moment, I foolishly thought someone was lighting bonfires after seeing smoke rising high into the sky, forming white columns across the landscape, like seeing a distant collection of old steam locomotives on a frosty morning, before remembering it was steam rising from the boiling earth below. The whole place resembled a slumbering bonfire, which only one gust of wind might bring back to life. It was a world on the verge of coming to the boil.
Ever more black and ever more bleak; that’s how it looked as we closed the coast. There were clusters of houses, probably around small harbours we couldn’t yet see, and when we finally closed the headland we saw that the lighthouse – a white tower wearing a red hat – had been built on a small volcanic mound. It’s the oldest lighthouse in Iceland, leading the way into the capital’s harbour; the first was destroyed by an earthquake in 1887 and stood for only eight years. This must be a land of determined people, otherwise why would you try to survive on a turbulent landscape like this, and live your life on something that has the colour of burnt toast and feels like walking on powdered glass? And remember, some of the planet’s biggest fireworks lie just below the surface, just biding their time, waiting to make fools of experts who say they can predict earthquakes and eruptions.
I wondered what those old Suffolk sailors from my harbour back home, who first saw this landscape with 14th-century eyes from the decks of their rough and ready vessels, made of it? Why no grass, no trees, no farms, no walls or fences? It is without doubt the bleakest bit of coastline on which I have ever made landfall, and must have seemed even more so to them. At least I had the advantage of knowing that civilisation was not far away; they had no such certainties. When they were voyaging here it was only a few hundred years after the end of the Viking era, of which they would certainly have been aware, if only through folk tales. If they feared that murdering Vikings still roamed here, who could blame them? The place is dark enough to be home to every imagined atrocity. If God made the Earth in seven days, I reckon he gave up on Iceland round about day four or five, thinking he’d come back and finish the job when it had cooled down a bit, but somehow forgot.
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br /> We sailed around the northernmost point of the peninsula, aiming for the next lighthouse, painted vivid orange, the only splash of colour we saw, then shaped a course to the harbour at Hafnarfjörður, once a village in its own right but now effectively part of a sprawling Reykjavík. I had already made contacts here before leaving home and we were expected. As far as my researches could find, this was the harbour where those old Suffolk sailors might have landed, finding better shelter here than anywhere else on this coast. They must have kissed the shore when they stepped off their boats.
The wind died; evening was drawing on, and brought with it chilly and damp air, although this was still late July and high summer in most places, if not here. I phoned my contact, Egill, a dentist and local sailor, and told him I would be arriving around midnight. He said he wouldn’t stay up but I was to call the harbour on the radio and ask for Marcús, who would show us where to moor. A helping hand in a foreign place is welcome.
Even so, I felt uneasy. Usually, a landfall lifts the spirits and the promise of a harbour brings with it a feeling of relaxation. But I felt none of this. Perhaps I would shake it off. Too much black lava can bring on black moods.
The eventual arrival was warm and welcoming and I shrugged off the gathering doubts. Marcús turned out to be a tall, strong-looking fellow, a bit of a cut-out Viking, living on a boat rather than in a house. He spoke perfect English, which made things easy, and was a considerable sailor himself, and I had great confidence in him. In fact, there’s a lot of obvious strength in many of the people, both men and women, who you meet in Iceland. I guess it’s that feisty Viking blood that swishes through their veins, much of it undiluted by incomers because of the remoteness of the place: the tourist boom and the economic expansion that has drawn new genes to Iceland is merely decades old, not enough time for all that Nordic DNA to be washed out of their constitutions. Because it’s a small place and everyone might be related to everyone else, there’s a website in Iceland where you can check your boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s ancestry, because it’s quite easy to find you’ve been snogging a close cousin. The brawniness of the Icelandic men was best seen in the televised ‘World’s Strongest Man’ competition, with the Icelanders winning more awards than any other country, and it is said that many of the Icelandic titans model themselves on Grettir the Strong, a red-haired and freckled boy who, in legend, destroys a malevolent ghost (and kills an innocent man too, but remember this is the land of the sagas and such ‘accidents’ are commonplace); he turns out to be exceptionally strong, but was unaware of his own strength. This folk tale is popular with children. The modern Icelandic women, on the other hand, go in for fitness rather than sheer strength, and to be strong and healthy, rather than skinny and pale, is considered to be a measure of female beauty.