Farewell Mr Puffin

by Paul Heiney

  Like a vintner, I sniffed and sniffed again, literally intoxicated by the smell. I needed to be certain it was without doubt meths. I bought all four bottles on the shelf and with joy in my heart dropped them into a bag. That brief episode completely changed my view of Reykjavík. I was beginning to think that the whole place was a tourist dump, and all this talk of a vibrant culture was a triumph of public relations over fact. I didn’t believe that any longer, now I’d got my meths. It’s a great place! And if you’ve got a diesel heater like mine it’s the best place in the world to be.

  There is one secret, though, that is rarely disclosed. Iceland has swimming pools like we have car parks – everywhere. Even the smallest village will have one. Some are wild and natural, formed in rock pools, and these are well known to tourists. But there is another kind of pool, known to locals, and thanks to a careful reading of the Hafnarfjörður guidebook I found one not more than five minutes’ walk from the boat. It was a typical municipal pool from the outside, same as you would see in any small town anywhere in the world, but inside and once through the compulsory shower, which must be taken unclothed – you will be told off by other swimmers if you keep your trunks on – you find that this is less a sporting opportunity and more a social one. They don’t have pubs in Iceland, they have pools. This is where they come at the end of a working day to relax and chat. There are usually three hot pools, with varying degrees of temperature. The heating is supplied, of course, naturally, and comes free from the volcanic heat that lurks not far below the surface here. One pool might be so hot that if it were a bath at home you’d think twice about getting in. The final one would have you thinking that the bathwater was too cool and you needed some more hot, and the middle one, stuffed with the most people, was somewhere between the two. Conversation followed the pattern of pub talk the world over in its rhythm, and quite long periods would pass in silence while the waters flowed. Few people took to the conventional pool to swim lengths.

  It was deeply relaxing to feel the kiss of the natural thermal water. There is a quality to the subterranean heat, although at times you have to endure its sulphurous origins. On some days I went twice, last thing of the day being my favourite. Then back to the boat, pour a glass of meths, and get that heater going.

  * Barbara A. Kerr et al. (2017), ‘Creativity and innovation in Iceland: Individual, environmental, and cultural variables’, Gifted and Talented International, 32:1, pp. 27–43.

  12

  The Viking and the Lad arrive

  The inevitably named Viking Hotel, just across the water from where the boat was moored, is not my idea of a dream destination. Designed for the ‘experience-seeking’ tourist, it offers food and ale served by staff dressed, panto style, as Viking marauders and about as scary as the Wombles. Any place that employs the word ‘themed’ must come under the gravest suspicion. A ten-foot model of a Viking stands guard on your approach to this hotel, but if he were a Viking worthy of the name he would have torched the place the moment he set eyes on it. It’s got giant elves as well, grim faced, acting as sentries, and that doesn’t cheer things up much either. It’s got gloom like no other place; the food might be decent, but it is served in pine surroundings so dark you wouldn’t be able to judge it by sight. I never ventured to eat there – the pricey menu is designed around those lucky enough to have valuable dollars in their pockets and not pounds, which were edging closer to Monopoly money by the day.

  But there is one thing going for it, just one. It has a charming, if reserved in that chilly Icelandic way, receptionist and she will happily take your bookings for the airport bus, which, conveniently, stops right outside the hotel. I would be needing that before too long.

  More immediately, that same bus was about to deliver my new crew fresh from the airport. They were Alan and Matt, and for the life of me I was uncertain if I would recognise either of them. I felt, for a moment, like a tour operator, about to welcome customers who had flown all this way for the experience of a lifetime, and delivering it was not only my job but my duty, or they’d ask for their money back. At moments like these I remember why I sometimes prefer to sail alone.

  I was overcome with nervousness about how the next couple of weeks would play out. A boat is a confined place for three blokes, becoming even smaller when things get tough, as they well might. All boats shrink in size when the weather worsens. On bright sunny days, with dappled skies above you and shimmering water rushing past, your boat can feel the size of a football pitch; but when it’s wet, the sea rough and cascading around you, when every movement is a supreme effort of balance and grabbing… that’s when being on a boat can feel like being confined to a child’s cot cast on to tempestuous waters.

  Alan, I guessed, might be the bigger risk, largely because he’d never sailed before. Matt, on the other hand, had done a transatlantic crossing in what might generously be described as a ‘budget boat’. Alan, however, was an artist, a portrait painter, the winner of a prestigious portrait prize, but that won’t get you far when you’ve got a riding turn on a winch and the wind’s getting up. But when invited, he responded in such an overwhelming way, I decided that anyone bursting with enthusiasm to go on a trip like this rated far higher than someone for whom it would be just another sail. Anyway, I needed someone who didn’t want to talk ‘jib sheets’ all the time, which Alan certainly wouldn’t because he didn’t know what one was.

  Matt, on the other hand, had sea miles under his boots. A couple of years back he’d taken a fairly basic boat across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and lived to tell the tale. I assumed he would be someone who would understand what ‘pull down a reef and back the staysail’ might mean without a long explanation and a hastily drawn sketch.

  I’d been anxious about this meeting all morning and had spent longer outside the Viking Hotel than was needed. Alan lived to a budget and so always made use of a texting app that allowed free communication. Not in Iceland it didn’t, so I sat beneath the towering Disney-like figure of that damned Viking for at least an hour longer than was necessary. As the passengers tumbled off the bus, I gulped when I realised I was completely unaware of who I was looking for. I’d last met Alan a couple of years before, but people change and memories deceive. Matt I’d never met.

  I finally found them at the rear of the bus, dragging rucksacks and baggage. Alan was, as I remembered, a robust-looking fellow, as befits a former Leicester policeman. His beard, which I had not remembered, was stiff and dense, like a Brillo pad. ‘It’s the Viking look,’ he said, and it truly was. Matt, on the other hand, although 30 years old, carried himself like a shy student, a figure more like an 18-year-old than his true years. Young people who go on lengthy sailing adventures usually return from them fully grown, but Matt seemed to have avoided this. That was the first impression, anyway, which can be deceiving. There’s a nickname in south Yorkshire, where Alan and I both originate from. If you want to describe a young man who might be a bit on the cocky side, not quite as good as he thinks himself to be, at times exasperating, you’d call him ‘a right laddo!’ That expression had not crossed my mind for decades, but as I watched Matt gather his bags, I wondered to myself if we had a ‘right laddo’ on our hands.

  ***

  We staggered back to the boat dragging a hefty load of luggage and once on board I allocated Alan a bunk up at the front of the boat, where the berths are longer – he’s a tall fellow. The Lad, as I now called him, could sleep in the saloon, being shorter. Then, when I wasn’t watching, the Lad leaped across to the table where the charts are kept and started to thumb through and shuffle them as if they were his own. I didn’t like that. If it had been a child, he’d have been given a clip round the ear. It was like going into someone’s house and picking up their newspaper without asking. Then he started punching buttons on the navigation equipment, like a child who had got to the TV before his parents could stop him. I had a quiet word but, disconcertingly, I don’t think he could quite see what he’d done wrong. I decided I was goi
ng to have to be positive about all this; let’s just call it playful. Alan went forward, alert to his new surroundings, but nervous and curious like a cat given a new home. He started to unpack, sketch pad, pencils, watercolours, and spread them out on the small cabin table.

  The Lad boasted at length about his own boat and his Atlantic voyage while Alan listened patiently, but he had the look of a man who was listening to a foreign language. Alan saves his words for the right moment and doesn’t waste them. He doesn’t bother to pretend he’s living in the Lad’s world of eternal childlike sunshine.

  It was safe to say that I could not have enlisted two greater opposites. While the Lad focused only on charts, sails, tides, Alan was breathing the air as if slurping rich wine, tasting the atmosphere and finding it greatly to his liking.

  ‘I’ve had my DNA checked,’ he announced. ‘It only cost a hundred quid.’

  I was on the edge of my seat by now.

  ‘They say I’m 80 per cent Viking!’

  You don’t say, Alan. Who’d have guessed? That muscled body, broad hands, powerful face, fulsome beard. No, I’d have said you came from a long line of ballet dancers.

  Given that he is Lincolnshire born, where Danish and Viking influence was greatest over the years of their invasions, it is highly likely that a drop or two of that ferocious and determined Viking blood was swirling through Alan’s veins. I told him he could have swapped places with that ridiculous statue outside the Viking Hotel and nobody would have spotted the difference, and he liked that.

  I guessed we were in for an interesting time, given that Vikings didn’t take lightly to fools, and the Lad had yet to show any evidence that he might be a mature conversation maker.

  Then Alan threw into the conversation, ‘I’m getting very interested in flour. Let’s buy some potatoes and we can make pancakes.’ Hmm, potato pancakes might not have been a Scandinavian warrior’s first choice of snack, but perhaps it was better than having beef bones flying around the cabin, so I took his pancake ambitions as a promising sign of peace and we all went to bed.

  The next day was damp and grey with a cool wind blowing, but not a strong one. Given their lack of familiarity with the boat I decided to give the newcomers an easy start, which would have been made easier if there had been a harbour a couple of hours’ sail away. Instead, the only sensible thing to do was to head north, towards the Snaefellsnes peninsula. I read aloud from the guidebook, which promised ‘dramatic landscapes, lava fields, black pebble beaches…’. The Viking’s blood was already up, and mine too.

  ‘Let’s go for it!’ he declared with a growl, reaching for the brush to dip into the darkest colours on his palette. I didn’t want to spoil his party but it was over 50 nautical miles away, which meant nothing to him but to me it suggested at least 12 hours’ sailing – a lot for someone setting foot on a yacht for the first time.

  First we had to move the boat from her berth. This was going to call for the utmost patience. The Lad understood exactly what to do and started to undo the lines as asked. He then passed them to Alan, who handled them like a man who had been passed a precious jewel and was uncertain how to hold it, and at other times as if he’d been chucked an unexploded bomb. He tried to unravel them and coil them, sailor-like, so they wouldn’t come undone in the locker, but it was sad to watch. I told him not to bother and he looked relieved. Once free from the shore, I put the boat into gear and motored slowly to the far side of the harbour, where that fat yellow hosepipe had been continuously spurting fresh water into the harbour for the entire time I had been here. The Lad grabbed a stray rope dangling from the quay and pulled us alongside till the hose reached the water tank filler and we topped up.

  We departed northwards in a light breeze, which gave us a fair if slow start. Alan was lapping it up, enthusing about the landscape, the power of the distilled air. We brewed tea and coffee and by the middle of the day the breeze strengthened a little and a swell started to roll in. Alan had been sitting by the stern and was sketching; then, in the way of a true artist, he announced, ‘I need to write. I’m going to go to my bunk and jot down a few thoughts.’

  I should have stopped him.

  He opened the cabin door to find his precious sketch pads and paints strewn around the floor after the first of the passing swells had sent them flying. Old hands know that everything on a boat must be assumed to have wings and is ready to take off at the slightest prompting. You don’t leave the milk unsecured, or cups of tea un-wedged in the cockpit. Poor Alan didn’t know any of these things, but he did now.

  He soon discovered, even worse, that sitting in the front of the boat, below decks, trying to write, is a cast iron guarantee of seasickness unless you have a stomach with the strength of a bank vault.

  He wasn’t down there very long, perhaps ten minutes, and emerged green-faced, clutching his mouth closed till he made a leap for the side of the boat and gloriously threw up. We have a bucket reserved for episodes like these, we’ve all used it, there’s no shame attached to seasickness. I don’t like people leaning over the side, no matter how ill they might feel, for it’s a short slip from there to being in the water. I wedged him in the cockpit with the bucket and told him to get on with it and when the worst was over I sent him down below to lie horizontally in the central cabin with his eyes closed, which usually does the trick for a while at least. We were less than halfway there with many hours yet to go, and for the rest of the day we saw little of him other than when he emerged with his brimming bucket, pleading for it to be emptied.

  The wind freshened and the sea rose in response, which didn’t help, and the blue sky became overcast and drizzle soon followed. My sights were set on a small fishing village on the south side of the peninsula, called Arnarstapi, but when we were as close as a mile all I could see through the drizzle was an uninterrupted grey and unwelcoming rocky coastline with white water breaking against the boulders in warning. Things became no clearer as the minutes passed. I started to fiddle with the electronic navigation stuff, which confirmed Arnarstapi was dead ahead, despite all appearances. I was getting twitchy. Alan groaned, ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ I replied in all honesty that I didn’t have a clue.

  I popped back to the cockpit from the chart table and still saw no harbour, but I did spot a different kind of rock formation, more ordered than the rest. This resolved itself into a long wall built of boulders, nicely judged to add to the confusion. It was the Arnarstapi harbour wall. We rounded the end and saw the tiny harbour packed with small fishing boats, like canned fish themselves. They were not the mighty trawlers of the deep-sea fleet, but two-man boats that worked long lines to catch modest amounts of white fish. We ended up alongside one that was moored beneath a small fish storage shed. The drizzle got its act together and turned to rain, so we gratefully turned to drink and food. As often happens with seasickness, Alan was quickly restored to full Viking health as soon as we entered the smooth waters of the harbour. Like a prisoner released, he clambered across several boats to make for the shore, where he asked the man in the fish factory if he had some fish for sale. The grim reply was ‘You don’t want any of this kind of fish’, but he wouldn’t say why.

  There are elves in Arnarstapi, that’s for certain. According to local legend, a farmer claims to have seen a convoy of ten horses ridden side-saddle by women heading for the mountains – that was apparently something to do with elves. A famous Icelandic medium reported seeing sailors dining here in a great hall, women waiting on them dressed in white – elves again. She also saw a big cargo ship, which no one else saw, and insisted it was cargo destined for the elves. I told these stories to Alan and the Lad. We contained our scepticism, just in case.

  The next morning, in torrential rain, which had poured hard on the deck all night, we slithered across the smelly, fishy decks of the boats between us and the harbour wall and started to walk through the bleak and boggy moorland that lies between the harbour and the mountain around it. It is said that the place names round here
are derived from the Icelandic saga that tells the story of Bárður, who is described as ‘half human, half ogre’. In the gloom of that day, I could well imagine he might have felt quite at home round here.

  It is one of the deficiencies of cruising under sail that you end up knowing much about the waters and little about the land. Prior research would have revealed that we were in a touristy hotspot, part of the National Park, which explained the coaches, the busy roads, the hikers dripping in wetness from head to foot, the cafes where a coffee and a slice of rhubarb tart might set you back the best part of 12 quid. I’m sorry to go on about money, but it really hurt. Icelanders love their rhubarb and it grows well here; this shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that rhubarb likes to flourish in the dark, which they have in abundance in the winter. It used to be considered a vegetable but is now mostly a sweet treat. Incidentally, it is also an effective pesticide if boiled with water and soap.

  After several torrential hours, we came back to the boat to dry out, but such was the soaking that the feeble warmth from the diesel stove only served to fill the cabin with a clammy fog and did little to dry anything out. Alan, stomach restored, cooked us sausages with slowly stewed cabbage, and his exemplary potato pancakes took centre stage and made a magnificent debut. They were to make many encores in the following couple of weeks.