Farewell Mr Puffin

by Paul Heiney

  Within the hour, he was up and eating breakfast. I don’t think he ever knew the patch was there. All he knew was that there had been a ritualistic laying on of hands, like something Jesus might have done. Either way, Lazarus was soon on his feet and once again enjoying his dream come true. Very satisfying.

  I performed the same trick with Alan. I had examined the forecasts, looked at the diary, checked the dates of our return flights, and decided it was time to head south, back to the Reykjavík area where the boat was going to be left for the winter now that the first season of the voyage had been completed. I desperately wanted Alan to at least have a few days of good sailing with the benefit of an iron stomach, so out came the patches and such was the effect that Alan almost immediately started making tea and dived from deck to cabin and back untroubled, even steered a little, and ate a hearty lunch while underway. A second miracle.

  ***

  Grundafjöður is one of those little towns that you don’t want to leave, and I almost didn’t, but not for reasons of affection. The harbour is on the Snaefellsnes peninsula, on the north side, with Arnarstapi directly south on the other side. We were lying alongside in perfect shelter, short walk to the supermarket, even a wine shop. At the head of a bay to the east of us, in the upper part of the fjord, were a myriad of small islands and jutting rocks, making for a glorious sight but impossibly intricate sailing.

  The weather was clear as we approached the day before, but soon dark storm clouds were gathering over the mountains as we came alongside, and sheets of rain could be seen falling around the summits. Squeezing between the laden clouds, biblical shafts of evening sunlight beamed down on the volcanic landscape, making any hint of green vegetation glow. A vintage gaff-rigged ship on the opposite quay, flying the Dutch flag, gave the place a sense of timelessness.

  ‘Big wind tonight,’ the Dutch skipper shouted, and I took note and asked Matt and Alan to go ashore with extra ropes to make us doubly secure.

  Around three in the morning, out of nowhere came the howling of the wind, so loud and insistent in the rigging that it would have disturbed the deepest of sleeps. The boat rocked in the swell even though we were well sheltered behind the harbour wall; the mooring lines creaked in protest as the wind tried to blow us from our berth. It was a belter of a storm, and certainly beyond anything I had seen in any forecast I’d looked at that day.

  The town lies at the junction of several river valleys that flow to the sea, and on either side is high volcanic land, making for perfect wind tunnels. This might have been an entirely local effect, and the general forecast may have been correct. Localised winds are one of the perils of sailing among mountains. When the wind did eventually arrive, I found it a perfect excuse to dig deeper into my warm bunk, hoping it would go away. We had doubled up our mooring lines; what was to be gained from fretting? At some stage in the howling night I heard the Lad go up on deck. He later told me he was curious about the wind speed and said he’d seen 45 knots on the dial, which is towards the top end of severe gale nine.

  Despite the attractions of my bunk, I did glance around in a rather cowardly way by sticking just my head out of the hatch. I noticed that the yacht astern of us had been taken by surprise and was hastily rigging more lines, its crew clad only in the clothes in which they were sleeping, the wind whipping at them, the cold rain chilling them instantly to the bone.

  It was flat calm by breakfast time.

  Icelandic fishing towns all follow the same pattern and once you have been to a few of them it can become difficult to tell one from another. All have a prominent church with a wooden spire, always painted white. The housing is mostly single-storey, sometimes clad in corrugated steel. There are usually plenty of street lights (electricity being very cheap) and the roads and pavements are wide, with grass verges neatly trimmed. It pains me to say it, but it is all a bit too tidy, everything a bit too new-looking, as if it had been unwrapped fresh from a box. In Grundafjöður there was a supermarket far superior to the one in our previous harbour, which had been not much more than a miserable hut in which you felt you were buying your miserable groceries from a run-down garage. This one, on the other hand, would not have looked out of place in a north London suburb. And, joy of joys, there was a swimming pool. At the time, I had little idea how important this modest pool was to become in my life.

  Coming back to the harbour, I noticed the ‘Laki Cafe – Whale Watching’, but more importantly its announcement of a happy hour, starting at five. Nothing makes you cheerier than the promise of cheap beer in Iceland. We were there by one minute past the appointed hour and found it pleasant enough, if quiet. I bought a round, and Alan bought a round, but there was an obvious reluctance on the part of the Lad to part with any money. Having decided that he could only be an 18-year-old pretending to be 30, and that he was impersonating an impoverished student and not being the civil servant that he really was, this came as no surprise. So Alan teased him several times, each with more firmness than the last, until he eventually coughed up, the penny having taken a long time to drop.

  Since we were drinking small glasses, I remained as sober as a judge. The accident that followed was, therefore, nothing to do with the drink, I swear. With Wild Song moored alongside the harbour wall, our only means of getting ashore was to climb a vertical iron ladder, which I had done many times already without incident. As we returned to the boat, however, I descended carefully, step by step, before putting one foot out and placing it on the deck of the boat. I can only imagine that the soles of my shoes must have become caked in the slimy green seaweed that clings to everything round here. My foot slipped. I fell feet first into the icy water, but mistakenly grabbed the guard wires that run around the deck, hoping I might save myself. Instead of saving me, I was left dangling from them, my legs now totally submerged and already frozen, and all my weight being carried on my arms. Inevitably, my hands gave up as the guard wire cut deep into them and I slid slowly into the freezing sea. As I did so, each and every one of my ribs pounded hard against the heavy teak of the boat. One after the other, each collision more painful than the one before.

  The pain was immediate, but I had enough adrenaline to swim the couple of strokes needed to get me back to the harbour ladder. Then I climbed a couple of rungs so I could board the boat once again. On making it back to the cockpit, I slumped in shock. Alan offered me a couple of paracetamol, which I thought would be about as much use as giving an aspirin to a rhino, but it was the thought that counted. I was winded, damaged and shocked, and soon the pain would kick in.

  It did with a vengeance, but not until the following morning when I had to get out of my bunk. It’s one of those beds, like so many on boats, that’s fine once you’re in it, but achieving that is not always easy. It’s balletic, in a way. You have to sit, tuck your knees up under your chin, then spin yourself round before stretching out. Getting out again is the reverse and is not usually a problem.

  But that morning, the muscles around my ribs had seized and the ribs themselves were singing an aria of pain. There was no point in doing anything slowly as it would only prolong the agony, and so the only solution was to get it over with as quickly as possible. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and flung myself at the task. I truly wanted to scream, but somehow saved it until the moment came when I couldn’t take it any longer, which was when I had to haul up my trousers and climb into a shirt. Then I really did let rip.

  I fell back on to the saloon cushions to get my breath back and brace myself for the next movement, every one of which now had to be planned with care.

  Feeling a little miserable, I examined my chest and saw that bruises were emerging – some as dark as storm clouds, some yellowing and spreading fast. Neck to navel was now a feast of technicolour tissue damage. There was no possibility of climbing that ladder again, so the lads went off to seek advice. The harbourmaster was helpful and suggested we moved to a berth where I could step off the boat directly on to a floating pontoon, and this we did.


  The local pharmacy had painkillers, but only feeble stuff. The on-board medicines weren’t much better.

  ‘Takes a long time, broken ribs,’ Alan warned cheerily. ‘Three months after my car accident and they still hurt like hell.’ More good news then.

  I shuffled back to that bar on the stroke of five where, to our surprise, the Lad bought the first round. Was it that serious? Was I at death’s door? Having taken a couple of glasses of anaesthetic, I walked very cautiously back to the boat, giving the ribs no chance to complain. Alan said he was going for a stroll on the beach.

  He returned after an hour’s beach-combing, clutching the desiccated and bedraggled head of a gull. It looked as miserable as I felt, all life drained from it, haggard and broken. He showed it to me with the enthusiasm of a child that had captured its first spider.

  ‘Do you know what I think of this place called Iceland?’ he continued, his eyes flaring. ‘It is a place of violence.’

  He may not be overstating the case. In a bunk-side book, I found reference to Olaus Magnus, a 16th-century Swedish writer who wrote A Description of the Northern Peoples, which was printed in Rome in 1555. It was something of a horror story as much as a reference book and spoke of dark winters, violent seas and beasts of the waters. Of Iceland, he said, ‘Praise is due to this island for its unusual marvels. It contains a rock or promontory which like Etna seethes with perpetual fires. It is believed that a place of punishment or expiation exists there for unclean souls.’ So you might have been on to something when you spoke of violence, Alan.

  Still feeling as if I had been violently done to, I took a slow walk up to the swimming pool, hoping there might be one of those thermal hot pools where the water comes hot, steaming and restorative straight from the bowels of the earth. Undressing prior to the compulsory shower, I noticed my bruise had spread even further, as if something not very nice inside my chest was melting and a fine piece of purple and yellow conceptual art had painted itself across my entire torso. I feared that any children in the swimming pool who might see me would go running to their mothers in horror. I crept carefully towards the hottest of the tubs with my arms crossed to hide my chest. I took it one step at a time, ready for the blissful, pain-easing warmth of subterranean, steaming water. It was tepid! Damn! If there’s one thing they’re not supposed to have in Iceland it’s tepid water.

  ***

  We stayed three long days in Grundafjöður while my aches and pains subsided to a workable level, and by then I was keen to move on. The days were still quite long and we could easily sail till ten o’clock at night, so a 25-mile passage was no big deal. I looked forward to being back at sea; Icelandic towns can be great on the first day, less beguiling on the second, and by the third you tend to be screaming to get out, which was where I stood now. We hoisted sail on a fine afternoon and headed towards the tip of the Snaefellsnes peninsula to a harbour called Rif, which would place us well for rounding the corner the next day for a clear run back to the Reykjavík area. Making good time, helped by a little fair current, we were there by five and tied up in an artificially created fishing harbour. To call it soulless is not to do full justice to the misery of the place. I found not a thing to recommend it. It was clean and tidy, like everywhere else, and had all the things these towns should have, but somehow this time the recipe didn’t work and the experience was as flat as one of Alan’s pancakes. Later, talking about it, we decided we all felt the same but none of us mentioned it at the time. Instead, we sat down to a dreary, silent supper in the shadow of a depressing concrete wall, staring out at more concrete walls and the lifeless vista that is the town of Rif. Even the local guidebook admits it is ‘a barren fishing village with only three streets and probably only one brand of red wine’. Yes, barren is the word. Bleak in summer and unimaginable in winter. There is one of the largest gatherings of Arctic terns in the whole of Iceland here. I could have told them this from the repeated attacks on my head by the dive-bombing birds, deliberate attacks from a great height with much shrieking and cackling, like the noise of a football rattle. This was no skirmish – they declared war on me. I was not up to a fight. I still ached, my head was numbed by the dreariness of the place, so I asked the others if they’d seen anything of interest. Silence.

  Time to go. No delay. It would mean an overnight sail of a hundred miles to Reykjaviík but we were up for it. There was nothing out there that could be worse than what was on offer in here. A slightly perplexed harbourmaster watched us leave, probably wondering why we’d come here in the first place to stay for such a short time? Which was exactly the question crossing our minds.

  Sailing with someone of an artistic mind, who has no interest at all in the set of sails or the way of a ship, can be surprisingly rewarding. On one occasion I went below to catch up on some sleep and left Alan alone on watch, the self-steering taking over control of the helm so Alan didn’t even have to steer, which was beyond him anyway. I told him to keep looking around and if he saw another vessel of whatever kind – yacht, fishing boat, ship, whatever – he was to call me. I also pointed at the wind speed indicator and to the numbers in a small window at the bottom. ‘If that number gets over 18, you must call me.’ He nodded. Eighteen knots of wind was the point at which I would have to reduce the sails.

  I drifted off to sleep and was woken by the changing motion of the boat. I know Wild Song so well that, like a mother who can instantly spot a problem with her child, I sensed all was not well. We were leaning, bucking, cascades of water sluicing down the side decks.

  ‘Alan!’ I cried. ‘What does the number say?’

  There was a moment while he wiped his glasses.

  ‘Twenty-four!’

  Bloody hell! I should have reefed ages ago. I asked him why he didn’t call me when the window showed 18.

  ‘Because the waves were getting bigger, and the shapes were lovely, and the deep greens in the troughs between them…’

  He had seen the magic of the ocean through his artist’s eye while I, as sailor, had sensed only the growing malice of the sea. His approach might carry him to a higher plane of thought, but mine would get us safely home. The two approaches are not entirely contradictory and on reflection I thought we made for a satisfactory pairing.

  And where was the Lad while the weather was heading on a downward spiral? He had taken to his bunk with what he called a searing migraine-like headache and was unable to stand his watch. I wonder why I ever bother with crew. I’ve happily sailed tens of thousands of miles without them and never felt the lack. But that moment, with a chest that still felt as though it had been run over by a rhino, a helping hand would have been the most welcome thing in the world; however, that helping hand was deep beneath its duvet and showed no signs of coming out.

  I eventually shook that hand goodbye in Reykjavík and he cheerfully caught the bus that sped him to the airport. An unlikely lad.

  As he stepped off the boat I looked at Alan, and Alan looked at me. We grinned at each other. That was all.

  We had arrived in Iceland’s capital on the annual Day of Culture to find a city packed with celebration as people sought out free waffles and coffee, which were being served, by tradition, from people’s front gardens. There were marching bands, parades, happy families. The word ‘culture’ was being interpreted in the broadest sense and included a sandwich cake competition, a hip-hop festival and karaoke.

  ***

  Our mooring in Reykjavík was beneath what is possibly Iceland’s most inspiring sight, even more so than the glaciers, volcanoes and all the other geographical majesty on offer. The Harpa concert hall is a magnificent piece of architecture, a honeycomb of coloured glass around a building with many faces; from the boat, we could see ourselves reflected in its windows. It is a kind of resurrection building, having been started before the great financial crash of 2007, put on hold as the country went bankrupt, only to rise from the ashes of their stricken currency to be the single construction project taking place in the entire nat
ion during 2008. The government’s confidence in it has paid off handsomely.

  On this day of culture, every one of its venues was free to visit; a youth orchestra played, elsewhere soloists, actors, poetry readers. There was nothing precious about this notion of culture. Where we always seek to elevate all such things towards the highbrow, the Icelanders seek only fun. The youth orchestra was joyous, but most inspiring was a gang of Faroese musicians who had come to play their folk songs and tunes. Alongside them were Icelanders who played theirs, and the obvious Celtic links ran through both. The Scots and the Irish would have recognised their rhythms in their own tunes.

  I felt that on the last night of the first half of this voyage, the arc that I had sailed had somehow been completed by that music. The music of the places I had sailed to – Scotland, Orkney, the Faroe Islands and now Iceland – were all being played here on this day of culture, I wondered if perhaps this was the thread that was holding my voyage together.

  Of course it wasn’t! I had almost forgotten the puffin. Where were they? Not a single one seen in Iceland so far. I needed them more than ever now, for without that final jigsaw piece in this northern maritime picture, I could never claim to have fully seen this place.

  Oh, Mister Puffin. Where are you hiding?

  15

  The puffin hunt resumes

  The night is chilly, but not dark.

  The thin grey cloud is spread on high,

  It covers but not hides the sky…

  The night is chill, the cloud is gray:

  ’Tis a month before the month of May

  And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel

  A certain recurring pessimism within me, which I admit is probably due to my dark Yorkshire blood, has a tendency to expect the worst. Having left the boat in Iceland the previous August, I did not expect to find her in full working order when I returned. Surely, something must have happened to her in that time. She might even have disappeared, been stolen, or sunk. In the waking hours of winter nights, when my half-sleepy mind wandered, I added up all the things that could go wrong with her and awoke certain that they had all come true.