The sun barely sets at one am our last night in Heimaey Harbor

 A small set of rocks west of Vestmannaejar - we stopped to catch lunch, rest, and hang out with seals

 Sam and Nick drop lines.

 Success! Haddock for lunch.

 Curious pod of Orcas checking out Teddy.

 Nick with his arctic baraclava

 After a calm night the wind picks up to 20 kts for our approach into Reykjavik. It made for a hectic morning.

We made it - Teddy docked behind the opera house in Reykjavik.

Nick and Sam in foulies before the gale off Ireland wiped the smile off their faces

Nick sleeps weird

Sam and Joerg

Teddy from bow approaching Vestmannaejar

1,000 year old Christian headstone on Inishkea N.

Nick checks the jib sails on a clear night at sea.

I had to sleep on my left side for a week.

The mirage-like Rockall Bank, anointed in bird droppings like a snowy mountain.

A Lamprey eel - Looks like Ridley Scott ripped off mother nature for the Alien movies

Taking turns at the tiller, our wheel broke.

The drastic cliffs of Heimaey harbor

Hiking up Eldfell volcano that erupted in 1973

Atop Eldfell - Nick found a broken golf club and wouldn´t stop hitting rocks with it. View of islands (I can´t write them because I can´t find the proper symbols on this keyboard). Glacier on the mainland.

Town of Heimaey.

Fresh cod for dinner every night - not too bad.

Joerg catches mackerel mid-Atlantic for dinner, moments before he knocks the jib winch overboard. I got rather sick of mackerel.

Our farewell party in Clifden. Great support despite an impending squall!

                                                     Heading out. Thanks Melanie!

Teddy takes shelter at Inishkea N and dries out for two days.

(written by Nick)

Amanda's picture of us heading out of Clifden Bay. Mainsail is double reefed & the working jib up in anticipation of the NE gale.

The first night we were hove to 50 miles west of Clare Island in F7 going to F 8 in the morning. I had to triple reef the mainsail, something I had never done before. Joerg was thoroughly seasick, cold & wet, and Ben cracked his head, possible slight concussion, his ear a lurid purple from the crack! The wind backed to the NNW, from Iceland where we wanted to go, so bore NE to the island of Inishkea North, Mayo, up the Iirish coast (yeah we came back!) & spent 2 nights at anchor recuperating. Iniskea N is my favourite island in Ireland with its machair, remoteness & huge array of past relicts.

Took 7 days to get from Iniskea N  to Iceland, where we are now. We passed Rockall, a marvellous & tiny haystack of a rock solitary in the middle of the vast sea, powerful currents around it. We caught mackerel & ate it fried & raw (sashimi), absolutely super. We caught a seabird on a tuna lure & took it & marinated its meat for an elegant dish. We caught a lamprey eel that attached itself to the rudder, but no one had the appetite to skin & cook it. We had 2-3 days of near calm & thoroughly enjoyed outselves fishing & swimming, not the slightest impatience from anyone. Each day of northing shortened the night, from mild darkness to the north in Ireland to almost broad daylight, no night a all, here at Heimaey Island. The boat steered herself merely by setting the sheets & all slept through most nights.

Heimaey is spectaculkar with its volcanism & ferocious erosion. I'm going to the 1972 volcano after this. It erupted & destroyed 400 homes back then. Its surface is still hot - dig down into the pumice a few inches & you can cook food in it. Or so someone said.

Last night an Austrian couple called over, Jurgen & Claudia, of the solid steel vessel La Belle Epoque next to us, and we became lifelong friends instantly. A bottle of my port (which I got in the Azores last summer) called for their box of dried minke whale meat & minke blubber & dried lamb meat & dried haddock flakes (which they picked up in the Faroes en route here), which called for my French smoked ham & an entire bottle of John Jameson whiskey, which  called for a bottle of their rose wine & a filletting & sauteeing in breadcrumbs of a large cod we caught on the way in. Splendid.

Ben was unable to use the satphone to update this blog at sea. So we have to do this when we touch civilization, like this cafe just invaded by a swarm of fat, hungry & happy Barvarians & Austrians. Outta here now.

Nick

After a week of preparation, maintenance, and cleaning, we are ready to go. We loaded our last supplies on the boat; all our canned food (a whole lot of baked beans) and rode through town with the twelve-foot ice spear Nick built poking out the back of his car. Teddy is docked up on the quay in Clifden and we will leave as soon as the tide permits at about 2pm. Right now the tide is too low and she is resting on her keel. A gale is on its way out but still blowing force 7 winds with heavy seas, but Teddy can handle it; she is a hero's boat as Nick says, 16 tons, and we will leave anyway. We are anticipating large swells and its a good day to break out our foul weather gear. We have tightened the steering, replaced clamps, mended a torn jib with the help of Sam's father Olivier, and checked the rust on the forestay using an ingenious pulley system to hoist Nick up the mast. Olivier returned to Switzerland yesterday, and Joerg, our third crewmember, has arrived for the passage to Iceland. We plan to arrive at the Westman Islands of Southern Iceland in 7 days for some exploring and cod fishing.We cleaned Nick's house, took his dog Elsa to the neighbors, and got his affairs in order. There is nothing left to do but wait for the high tide. Many thanks to all our friends in Clifden for their love and support, and especially to Eleanor and David, Melanie, and Katherine for feeding us and having us at their homes. Next stop Iceland.

Nick Kats is my name. I'm the skipper & owner of Teddy. Have cruised her in NE Atlantic waters for the last few years. She is an immensely strong steel ketch, in character, strength, simplicity & style straight out of the 19th century.

This year we go to Iceland, Jan Mayen Land & E Greenland. Places of interest:

Rockall - a 60' high rock halfway to Iceland. Good fishing there, if not cleaned out. Very dangerous area in bad weather.
Heimaey Island = Westmannaey jar, SW Iceland. Volcanic. Surtsey Island, a volcanic island that rose out of the sea in the 1960s is 10 miles SW.
Reykjavik. Try my disco dancing skills there. Women are said to be starving as the men are all sodden drunk.
Westfjords, NW Iceland. A remarkable assembly of fjords between long fingers of high lands; look at the map.
Jan Mayen Land. 400 NM N of Iceland & the Arctic circle, well into the Arctic Sea. A 30 mile long finger of land, created by an 8000' volcano. No harbors. We are cleared by Norway to land & walk daily for up to a week.
Ittoqqotoormiit, E Greenland. Due west of Jan Mayen. This is the northernmost of 3 small Eskimo villages on the wild & inhospitable coast of E Greenland. The supermarket said to offer polar bear & muskox meat; I look forward to sampling these. We will rent a bear gun so we can walk ashore in safety from polar bears as we travel into the fjord.
Scoresbysund Fjord. This extends 150 NM into Greenland from the sea. It is the biggest fjord in the world. I hope to go deep into the N branch. There are a lot of glaciers calving ice into the sea & there'll be plenty of bergs. As we move west the ice cap in the surrounding lands builds up, so I expect it to get colder. There is some tundra & I hope to see muskox, arctic fox & hare.
Seydisfjordur, E Iceland. Up a fjord, has nice cafes & a good place for a beer.
Inishkea North, an abandoned shelf of island off the coast of Bellmullet Peninsula, County Mayo, Ireland. It is full of ruins from various stages of the rich Irish past. The 6' high standing stone slab with the etched picture of a saint in the exact style of the Book of Kells (AD 1000) is stunning. The machair makes for lovely barefoot walking. Good place for mackerel fishing. It is 50 miles to home.

We'll be out 2+ months.

The crew are
myself
Ben Yeager, 23
Sam Berner, 18.
Joerg Muller, for the 1st leg Ireland to Iceland
Eric Ploumis, for the leg Ittoqqotoormiit - Seydisfjordur.

I think this is a great crew & a great itinerary. I look forward to it all.

Ben & Sam arrive from America tomorrow. I reckon we leave Friday or so.

I hope we will update this blog daily or every other day, via satphone, as we travel along.