Hello world!

As we found out that we were sailing to Iceland we were all aware of the fact that it was going to be very, very cold. But boy is it cold!

Like reeeeally cold. Like wearing every layer of clothes you can find-cold. When I go up on deck I´m wearing three layers of pants and four layers shirts plus my sailing jacket and pants. Beside that I’m also wearing to layers of socks, thick mittens, a buff and a hat. And still, I´m freezing. They say it´s 8 degrees Celsius outside but with the wind blowing at 18 knots from the north, it feels much colder. I´m pretty sure that my bone marrow has now turned into ice. Hopefully I will at least get some magic freezing powers out of it.

But it´s not only on deck it´s cold, nooo. That could we manageable, but when I can no longer feel my fingers or toes and all a want is to get inside and warm up, I walk into my cabin to feel the ice winds of the ceiling fan blowing in my face. I have to sleep with a long sleeve shirt and pants made out of Marino wool plus wool socks not to become an ice cube while I sleep. And thou shall not dare to touch the walls thus then thou shall feel the coldness that can devours whole worlds.

But although it may be cold, I will never regret going in this trip. When you see the snowy mountaintops rising up along the horizon you get filled with a warmth so consuming that you forget all the icy nights you spent sitting on deck fearing that your toes might fall of. I´m more than exited to step foot on solid grown when we finely make port in Reykjavik’s harbor. I´m longing for more of this cold if that’s what it takes to get me there.

Anecdote of the day:

Earlier today when I was sitting on the foredeck as lookout, all of a sudden, I felt the wind shifting. I didn´t think much of it until a noticed that the coastline that we previously were sailing along were now right in front of us. We had done 90 degrees turn and we kept on bear in with the land until we were sailing the in the exact opposite direction, we had previously sailed in.

But this is only the beginning…

The story that you have been told was one that happened between 4 and 8 o´clock in the morning. At 8 I went back to sleep and woke up again at 13 o´clock to have some lessons and when I got back up on deck at 16 o’clock the sun was high in the sky and I was cooking. As sweat started running down my face I soon had to start taking of layers of clothes. As long as the sun was shining, it was actually really warm.

I was steering when everybody was suddenly needed in the rig, even the lifeguard and lookout, to furl the sails and the didn’t come down for one and a half hour. That meant that I had to steer the boat for three times as long as you usually would. Which got boring pretty fast. But later we got to see both wales and what looked like dolphins which made the day a lot better. After our shift everybody gathered at the main deck for a surprise. They then sent us to the foredeck and told us to wright a speech for the great God Njord who guarded the polar circle that we were about to cross. We also had to lay on the deck and make whale noises while moving around like seals. Then we returned to the main deck to meet the almighty Njord. We bowed in front of him after we threw fish in the sea as a sacrifice. We plead our case to cross into his waters. After he excepted, they our request they gave us a spoon of ice cream, baptized us in ice cold water and gave us a new name. It could be something like; Sandmask, Torskfena or Sjögurka.

At the end of the night our captain Hans played on his guitar and sang for us up on the quarterdeck. By then it was pretty cold outside, but it was definitely worth out.

Sending warmth from Iceland

//Elin Rydebrink