Blog Archive

Thursday 30 July 2015

Almost in Iceland

I think we must now be in the south bound cold current that splits off the east Greenland Currents and flows down the eastern side of Iceland. Certainly we have current against us with 37 miles to go and the sea temperature has dropped to a chilly 5 degrees. The cold water brings with it fog and a tanker we had seen on AiS from 30 miles away was only visible to the eye at 2 miles. 

We switched on the radar but the network is down so it can only be used on deck and not at the chart table. So a new job for port will now be trying to sort out the networking problems between the 2 plotters. Or maybe they will fix themselves?

We had a brisk sail for the first 24 and covered 164 miles noon to noon but today has been slower as wind has now veered to the north and we deliberately slowed down in an attempt to resuscitate the crew. That tactic has worked as Ronnie is now functional and I think Sally is too - though she is sleeping at the moment.

The whale meet stew remains firmly in the pressure cooker partly due to seasickness but mostly due to our disquiet about eating whales. On the night before we left Torshavn the the harbour master appeared with a gift in the form of 1.6kg of pilot whale steak from the 'Grind' or whale slaughter of the day before. It seems 150 pilot whales were driven into a fjord and the killed and butchered on a nearby shore. Hundreds of Faroese and foreign spectators had taken part and the Navy and Police had kept Greenpeace at bay until the meat was off the shore and widely distributed. Embarrassingly our share still sits in the pressure cooker which we haven't yet ventured to open. Though the Grind is an ancient tradition it does fly in the face 21st century sensibilities but the Faroese do seem only too willing to disregard international opinion both on this and on those they choose to trade with. 


PS the network chose to fix itself and the stew tasted great!