Seydisfjordur

 At Seydisfjordur. We came in in the evening 2 days ago. Just in time for some great pizza at Skaftfell. One more off my bucket list for this trip!

Seydisfjordur is lined with 3600' (1100 m) peaks. Heavily snowcapped. The low sun in the evening and the morning illuminates the peaks brilliantly, which brings down into the fjord a magical clear and intense light. 

The summer solstice was yesterday, and we are just a degree south of the Arctic Circle. No night. We won't see the night until late August/early September, then we will see the Aurora Borealis and our first stars.

This morning Karl and Ashleigh caught the bus to Egilstadir 40 minutes inland, for the day. The route up along the river at the head of the fjord and over the high snowy pass is the only way out by road. This spectacular trip alone makes the outing very much worth while. Egilstadir is a modern town, spread out in a suburban sprawl, no character. It is the central hub serving the villages and small towns of the Eastfjords. It sits within a long valley stretching out in a straight line of lake and river from Iceland's biggest glacier, Vatnajokull, north to the coast, carrying away much of its meltwaters.

The winds have been from the NW for a few days and are expected to remain so for a few more. Our way is north past the headland of Glettiganes and around the long peninsula of Langanes, then west, so we need to wait.

We met some neat people:

At Neskaupstadir we met a well known sailor, Trevor Robertson, travelling solo on his Alajuela 38 cutter. An Aussie (Cheers, mate!) he has sailed over 400,000 miles, was married to Anne Hill who wrote outstanding books on sailing, simplicity and self sufficiency, wintered twice with her in a remote bay 55 NM north of  Upernavik, west Greenland, on his home built steel ketch Iron Bark, and he visited and circumnavigated the Antarctic. He carries on board 100 liters of rum acquired in Venezuela 2 years ago. Great conversations.

Berthed alongside on a sloop was another sailor, Bjorn Tegetmeyer, a young man who soloed from Germany via the Faeroes to Iceland. His PhD is in physics, with research currently in proton beam therapy and in constructing at a molecular level layers of synthetic diamonds alternating with silicon. He is extremely intelligent and it was a pleasure to listen to him talk about science. He is married with two kids, yet is restless with the high discipline required of a career in scientific research, and yearns to sail and wander the world. Quite a character and quite the quandary - how will he resolve these utterly different pulls?

Coming into Neskaupstadir I thought I recognized a boat. Turned out to be Geir, who likes to sail across the Norwegian Sea on his home built ketch from near Bergen, Norway. We had met 6 years before at Djupivogur. 

I expect to cross paths with several others whom I've met in past years.  A funny sort of mobile community, this.