The crossing

Thu
3 Jul
2014

What a crossing! 470 nau­ti­cal miles from Ísaf­jörður to Jan May­en. On a 60 foot yacht against the wind.

For weeks, we could have had pret­ty calm wea­ther, but just in time for our depar­tures, storm war­ning were issued in Ice­land. So the case was unmist­aka­b­ly clear. The begin­ning was beau­tiful, sai­ling out of Ísaf­jörður, pas­sing the outer Nor­thwest­fjords such as Aðal­vik and Horn­vik … good memo­ries coming up again. Nice evening light, just a bit of swell. We crossed the arc­tic cir­cle around mid­night.

Ever­y­thing was pret­ty much ok on Tues­day, hard­ly any wind, just a bit of swell. Well, some of us were hard­ly seen, but some weird sounds made it clear they were still the­re, but I don’t want to go into fur­ther detail. That’s part of life on boat of this size.

But the head­winds start­ing Wed­nes­day mor­ning, they were real­ly not neces­sa­ry. We could well have done wit­hout. It was sim­ply not nice. Not at all. Save you from fur­ther details.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

But now we have got Jan May­en next to us. Pas­sing Sør-Jan, the sou­thern part of the island, in the most beau­tiful evening light. Storm clouds are rus­hing over the island, pain­ted pink by the evening sun. Lava streams coming down green slo­pes, fro­zen rivers of mol­ten rocks, cover­ed with mos­ses and lichens. What a view!

The­re is still a strong wind blo­wing over the island, white hor­ses ever­y­whe­re, more than at open sea. But it sup­po­sed to get bet­ter the next days. Fin­gers crossed!

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