Blog Archive

Thursday 20 July 2017

The starting gun has gone off


Last night was target practice time. Gumi, who took us shooting on the mountain top range in 2016, fixed us a repeat visit. So this time 8 of us piled into Heime's 4x4 and climbed up the mountain road to the gun range in the mist. There were a few sheep around but they seemed undaunted by a truckload of high velocity weapons arriving in their domain. 


Andrew and Janice from S/V Destiny brought their guide's gun - a short barrelled gun of massive calibre. Michael, from S/V Troll brought his CZ Magnum 375 which was identical to ours. He had bought it from a Greenlander who had dropped it in the sea after shooting a whale. Sweet revenge I think! Anyway it seemed to work fine. For good measure Andy had with him a phenomenal flare pistol which effectively fired the starting gun on our adventures and drew a line under the boat maintenance days served to date.


The guns boomed away and the target gradually got peppered by massively lethal rounds. A loud thud sent the huge whiz bang flare on its way kicking up a crater in the moorland as it met the earth. More mortar that flare pistol!


Most of us were diffident with the guns as we were intimidated by the loud bangs and tongues of flame and smoke. Tim got clobbered by the sights during the recoil and ended up with a blooded nose. Heather was hesitant but easily won the chocolate bar award for marksmanship. Sally was unnerved by show of noise and smoke but still managed to kill a target at 25 metres. I just about managed to do likewise.


When the mountaintop shootout ended all crews were a little more confident that we could defend ourselves agains a rampaging polar bear if we had to.


With mast blocks greased, sail sliders siliconed, engine oil levels checked and floorboards screwed down we were now nearing the end of the jobs list. When it became apparent that the freezer was being feeble the obvious choice was to call on the good folk of Isafjordur for assistance. As ever they came up trumps. Dori took the contents of the freezer to the hospital and lodged it in one of their freezers set to -22. He didn't tell us which freezer he used but we like to think it was either the mortuary or the pathology one. A few refrigerator contractors were summonsed  but most were out of town. Just after lunchtime Alaenka arrived from Bolungarvik who duly did the business with his re-gassing device. It was time to go.


We can only fuel at Isafjordur a couple of hours either side of high tide so we duly went along side the fuel berth and started the tedious task of taking on a summer's worth of fuel. As some of our tanks have been modified they are not designed to cope with high volume pumps so we tricked 870 litres of fuel in over the best part of 2 hours. A process made all the more painful by a large and vulgar German racing boat who insisted on butting in and helping themselves without so much as a please or a thank you. Disgraceful and menacing behaviour so out of keeping in a land of welcome, hospitality and universal friendliness. They were heading to Scotland so I hope they improve their manners before they arrive.


With 1200 litres of fuel and 600 litres of water on board we let go the lines, waved farewell to Isafjordur and it's delightful cast of characters and chugged ponderously out to sea. My only regret that we didn't dive and clean the prop and hull before we left - a job for tomorrow I think!