False Start

The good news is: we finally got some sailing in. The bad news is: it was en route to Husavik, a port on the north coast of Iceland, after a severe gale was forecast for the northeast corner of the island. So we’re sitting here in port for about 12 hours or so, waiting on the force 8 to 10 weather to blow past.

We’d seen this storminess — the remnants of Hurricane Irene, I believe — on the forecasts for some time, but earlier prognostications had it well beyond the northeast corner by the time we got there. My watch last night — I’m back on with the Finnish couple — saw the wind start to come up in the final 45 minutes, just before 9pm. We had the mainsail (with two reefs) and the staysail out and though we were still motoring, we’d pulled the revs back more and more as the wind built. When we came back on 3am, the engine was off and Boogie had already turned Polar Bear around. We were reaching in anywhere from 5 to 25 knots of wind; the wind was up and down in crazily wide swings as we made our way southwest back to port.

Husavik is Iceland’s premiere whale-watching town and is a tourist center that has also retained its commercial-fishing emphasis as well. I’ve not seen much — Polar Bear was here in July, when I was back in the U.S. — and I likely won’t get much chance, but the view from the sea is quite lovely: rolling, green hills to the east while steep, alpine peaks line the western shore of the bay. Houses line the bluffs that form the north side of the harbor and and reach just a tiny bit into the hills behind. It’s cute, to be honest, with the commercial fishing on the south edge of the port giving it a gritty edge. Put Husavik on the list for later exploration.

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Migration

Quarter past eight in the morning here in Akureyri, and we’ll be throwing off the lines in about an hour or so, heading for the Shetland Islands. With that in mind, gonna fire one off the cuff here…

Appropriately enough for Sept. 1, the climb up the hill to the pool complex this morning was filled with signs of the imminent seasonal change as flocks and flocks of geese poured across the sky. All V’ed up and honking merrily along, the flocks continued in a steady stream overhead while I took a final swim/hot tub (the slide was closed…dammit!).

Yesterday, the local youth nordic ski team was doing dryland training on the long stairway leading up the hill to the church overlooking town. And the woman in the tourist office at the harbor said that her shop would be closing after the visit of the final cruise ship of the season on Friday.

And now, sitting in the town square just off the harbor, the high overcast obscures the sun in a way that portends snow. It won’t, of course (not today anyway; after all, I’m sitting outside in the town square and am quite comfortable.

But like the geese this morning, Polar Bear and its crew will be headed south very shortly, the short northern summer having come to a close…the very definition of bittersweet.

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Next Steps: Part ??? in a Never-ending Saga

Every single time I call to check in with my folks, my mother asks me if I’ve decided what I’m going to do once I’m done on Polar Bear. Sometimes she’ll ask several times in one call (it’s true, Mom. You do). And every single time she asks, the answer remains the same: nope.

You’re shocked, I can tell. But while I don’t have any definitive idea as to what’s next, I am slowly whittling away at the options as I await that burst of insight the universe has always tended to grant me at crux moments in my life. I’ve whittled a couple more options away of late:

The original plan for Polar Bear was to head south to Scotland, Ireland, Madeira and the Canary Islands, there to join the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (known as “the ARC”) and head across the ocean to St. Lucia. When that plan went belly up thanks to the boat’s owner and his horse-puckey shenanigans, I began looking into joining other boats doing the ARC. Boogie and Marlies even had a friend who’s captain of another Challenge 72 yacht who was in need of a crewman to go. I also looked into crewing on some private yacht doing a similar event from the United States, the Caribbean 1500. Basically, the plan was to continue getting experience on other people’s boats.

Keep in mind that with the exception of sailing my Hobie Cat off the beach at Plum Island when I was a teenager, I’ve always been a member in good standing of the OPBYC: the Other People’s Boats Yacht Club. Whether racing or doing deliveries, I’ve always gone to see on a boat owned by someone else.

Well not this time. No more boat bumming…at least not at this time. If I’m going to continue sailing in 2011, it’s going to be on a boat of my own. More likely, it seems a return to shore-based life in some form is in the cards for the near future. And it’s possible I’ll combine a return to shore-based life with the purchase of a boat of my own to play on wherever it is I settle in. Of course, you’re all invited to come share in the fun on the boat if and when that happens.

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