We started down the cost of Iceland on Monday but saw very few vessels even close to Reykjavik. We eventually arrived in Reykjavik at 1am Tuesday.
Being near the coast gave us some mobile phone connectivity. We had had no communications since leaving Tasilaq although the yacht did have a Garmin In-Reach device that tracked our position on a website which our families had the link to.
I got up late in Reykjavik, many of the other crew had headed off to go and look at volcanoes. I was able to shower and use the free washing machine in the marina. This ended up taking most of the day and I had to walk the short distance into the city centre buy washing soap.
This was the finish of the first trip. We had sailed 200 miles around the fjords of Greenland and 450 miles from Greenland to Iceland so a total of 650 miles sailing in 12 days. More correctly it was all motoring due to such light winds.
The skipper Ales and all the other crew left Wednesday morning to return home, and the new skipper Howie arrived mid-morning Wednesday. The original plan was to come into a small port in the north of Iceland where there was not much to do so I had booked to stay in a hotel in Reykjavik between legs to explore the city. Although the hotel was now only a 10-minute walk from the boat I enjoyed three nights in a hotel and being a tourist around Reykjavik.
Saturday I was back on-board GS and helped with the first trip to the supermarket for dried food. The volume of food needed was significant as for this leg we needed enough food for 12 people for at least 15 days. This works out 540 meal portions. There is no freezer on board, and storage is limited, so food had to be planned quite carefully with due regard to volume, a variety of food and expiry dates. We then had a long job organising how to store all the food into the lockers on the boat.