We have built Kata Lind in Iceland, and of course we started sailing her in Iceland.
This page is a small abstract of our navigation in Iceland.
In many spots all around Iceland and close to the harbor, you can see whales. All kind of Whales. It’s really popular now and you have a lot of powerboats bringing tourists to see the whales. It makes much more money to do this business than to kill whales for the meat. Good for them and the nature =)
Living in Reykajvík, like most Icelandic people, I have sailed many times to the spot close to Reykjavík (15NM) to see the whales and I have seen them almost each time.
Few pictures of whales. I could put hundred. When I sail with them with sail, they can swim side by side with Kata Lind for 15 minutes in straight line. But when engine boats are around, their behavior is totally different. They stay really little to the surface, dive really fast, change course… But it’s still better to bring tourists with engine boats to see the whales than to kill them. Of course the best will be to bring tourist with sailboats but that’s another story.
That’s an old whale killer boat. There are 2 in activity I think. Still with steam engine… And they kill some whales each year. The meat for restaurants has to come from somewhere… you can see on the side of the boat a dead whale pulled by the tail.
In Iceland we have also fjords.
Here is the fjord Hvalfjörður, means, fjord of whales. This is where I have crossed Hvalur 9 from the previous picture. There has always been a factory to work the whales brought by this kind of boat. It’s a beautiful and really peaceful fjord. Even if we are less than 30min by car from the capital, it looks and actually it is empty. Middle of nowhere. Nature and beautiful landscape are in the program.
Natural wild life too is also interesting. Lot of birds and I even got several times seals coming to watch Kata Lind moored, dolphins one time too. But I didn’t catch them with the camera. And there are plenty of Eider too. People collect the Eider feather to make your Eiderdown. So don’t disturb, don’t touch anything, don’t collect anything, just watch and everything is all right.
The only problem with Iceland is the weather. People are nice, really nice and it’s peaceful, there is no problem, allt í lagi they say. Landscape is amazing, really different than what is usually seen, food is good (lamb and cod absolutely delicious) but the weather is crab. Of course during late spring, summer and beginning autumn you can get good weather. By good weather I mean sunny, no rain and no storm, but it will never be warm. And the weather can change really fast. But really fast, sometimes in a quarter you go from a sunny no wind weather to a snow storm with no visibility at all.
That’s a really small part of what is possible to do in Iceland with a boat. It’s not easy but it’s possible. Each summer few sailboats come, mainly from Europe. Most of them will continue to Greenland. But for now, Kata Lind will go to the south. It’s a long time that we are in Iceland and the crew needs some sun =)