Reykjavik

I had escaped Covid 19 so far, but on the 15th, I tested positive. Ron and John tested negative and they decided to leave the boat asap to escape an infection. It worked for John who had the disease as recently as two months ago but it did not work for Ron. Best I can guess is that we infected ourselves in Isafjodur's supermarket. But it's really just an annoyance because with the exception of 8 hours of fever, I had no more than a strong flu. The annoyance is that we want to do everything to avoid infecting others and that means quarantine. In Iceland, the rule is 5 days from the onset of symptoms and thereafter wearing a mask for 2 days inside buildings. But I tried to go further and wait for a negative test. That, in my case, took 11 days or even 12 because on day 11 the test still showed a faint positive line. Luckily, it worked out ok for the new crew of John Fryer and Stefano Galdiolo. They did 2 days of tourism in Reykjavik before they joined me and escaped my germs.

Summer flowers in Iceland

The 115 miles from Gundafjodur to Reykjavik I easily covered single handed in light and fickle breezes. It was an experience, however, to pass the Snaefellsjoekull glacier at mightnight while the sun was setting on the other (North) side of the boat.

The only problem was the harbor master in Reykjavik who told me on the phone that they were very busy and there was no room in the Brokey yacht club basin and sent me to dock at a humungous wall of tires next to a 100 m long Coastguard "boat." The Brokey harbor master simply said that the harbor was full and he would text me the phone number of some other harbor which I "could" try. That he did ½ hour later - after I had docked alongside Henry who were at the Brokey dock. This was not the first time in Iceland. Several harbor masters either didn't respond at all or were unhelpful.

I spent a nice few days on the boat by myself, doing small tasks and talking to other boats in the harbor (socially distant, of course) and doing some exploring of the town. As in Isafjodur, several boats were waiting for the ice in Greenland to open up. Only a couple of German boats and Henry, the OCC boat we had met before, are not going to Greenland. But the owner of Henry, Will Whatley, who captains the Sir David Attenborough, the most advanced of the vessels of the British Arctic Survey, definitely is planning to do the Northwest passage in the future! He has plenty of time for that as he looks like all of 25 years old!