Random moments captured by Hue

I would like to share these random memories from my passage as I don't have the time to write a story around each of these moments. They may not be in chronological order but they are in some sort of order, at least in my mind.

Excited and wide-eyed, we had little idea what we were in for, not even that Nick was born deaf until we stepped off the bus. He mentioned in emails that he preferred to communicate via writing because he's deaf but we both assumed that he's hard-of-hearing; people tend to throw the term 'I'm deaf' around too casually and don't literally mean it. We both agreed on the bus that it'll be a great adventure, no matter what happens, even more so when we met Nick face-to-face.

I don't like to look up photos of places I'll be going to nor people I'll be meeting because I don't want to be clouded by what I've seen or to have any preconceived bias. Nick sent me links to previous blogs but I intentionally ignored them so I had no idea what Teddy looks like before setting eyes on her. As you can see, when we started walking towards this boat I thought this was Teddy, not realizing that she was completely hidden behind it! Obviously the sight of the real Teddy totally took my breath away, after having just thought what Teddy was two seconds earlier.

These men refitted Teddy solidly for 2 months, before Josh and I arrived to help out on a few final odd jobs. From left to right, Liam is the boatyard owner and more importantly the crane operator for the task of installing the masts on Teddy. Nick Kats, the skipper. Josh, my fellow crew mate, whom I met working in Antarctica and never have been to the northern hemisphere before. Nick Kottler, an excellent craftsman with any material he touches, a sharp mechanic and an extraordinary teacher who explains in simple terms the how and more importantly the 'whys' you should do something. I don't think I've met anyone like him before who knows so much about any topic we happened to be talking about and so generous in imparting information in a totally non-condeseding manner. Pierre is Nick Kottler's apprentice, learning a new trade which has much more sociable hours than being a chef, even though these chaps work very long hours.

The bracket on the right is what Nick Kottler whipped up in about an hour, all done by hand, because the other one is no longer fit for purpose.

More examples of Nick's expertise: stainless steel corner protector and repair to the wooden water barrier.

Lunch break in the back shed of the boatyard where the building of a replica old boat is underway. The state of the building and its content of tools, building materials and the skeletal boat took me to a past era.

One of my contributions: taking over cleaning the threads to the U-bolts from Josh and making sure the nuts run smoothly. I couldn't get nuts to run all the way to the end on a couple of threads, despite hours of filing with minute files. When I finally gave up at the end of the day and reported the status back to the skipper in front of an audience of Josh and Nick Kottler, the captain said to me 'Don't worry about it, the nuts only need to run to half way up the threads'. I replied, 'Why didn't you say that earlier, you knew I had difficulty running the nuts over some of the threads'. His immediate reply was and I didn't need a translation this time, 'It's to keep you out of trouble'. Luckily for Nick I was holding a small file in my hand and not a sledge hammer. It was partly my fault, I should've asked how they were being used and if it's necessarily for me to clean them so thoroughly. I later discovered they are used to hold down the masts by anchoring the shrouds onto the deck and sure enough, the nuts barely made it half way up the threads!

U-bolts installation revealed.

Nick Kat's main toolbox. It's like stepping back in time.

Nick Kottler's van, full of tools. Has that missing tool eventually surfaced yet, Nick?

Time to rock & roll: lifting the back mast.

  Time lapse of erecting the rear mast.

With the rear mast in place, it's time for the main one. This time it didn't go so smoothly, for some strange reason the foot of the mast didn't reach the tray which it meant to be sitting in but the crane was not holding it up!

Why waste time getting a ladder when Nick is around?

For some unknown reason we attracted a lot of cats on our passage. The first one is a resident of Hegartys boatyard. I noticed her loitering around Teddy the night before we left. I picked her up against her will and carried her down below deck. She immediately took to Josh and spent a lot of time cuddling up to him.

She even came back later that evening for more snuggling.

The second cat took to Nick at Djupivogur in Iceland. We tied up that afternoon after being at sea for 5 days, swam at the swimming pool, enjoyed a beer and pizza at the hotel. We encountered her on our walk up the high point in town, Nick picked her up and carried her to the top.

This is the third cat which gave us all equal attention, rubbing herself slowly against our legs.

The fourth cat was a stray cat with a thick knotted coat, which I thought would appreciate some pickled sweet spiced herring. Once again I took this cat against its will to our boat and offered it the leftover herring we struggled to enjoy and willing to polish off. You would think being a stray cat that she would eat anything. Not so! She took a sniff and walked away. I insisted by shoving her back to the delicacy but again she would rather starve than to taste what we also considered was weird.

Having spent about 4 nights at Hegartys boatyard (I don't keep a journal and my memory has never been something to brag about), we were finally ready to start the voyage. Nick Kottler, along with his son Marcal, helped the skipper navigate the tricky Ilen River.

Cruising down river to Baltimore.

A few extra items from Nick's home in Clifden to be loaded onto Teddy, including this impressive long ice spear. The other item was a third anchor, which we nearly had to deploy to get us out of a sticky situation we got ourselves into when attempting to get closer to a glacier.

Teddy draws a string of admirers to her old-time style beauty. She was definitely either one of the most stunning, if not the best looking boat at every harbour we tied up to. There was even a film crew who originally was looking for a fisherman to do a story on but I suggested they should check Teddy out instead. I abandoned Nick and Josh to their mercy while I walked off to do the laundry and shopping. Josh later revealed that it was a full exposé with profile photos and all. Phew, that was a narrow escape for me.

Everyone chilling out in the cockpit while Teddy keeps herself on course, without our intervention.

Skellig Islands were among our first treats of the stunning scenery to follow.

A bird paradise.

Josh, the sniper, shooting Pierre and Nick on Inishvickillane Island.

What terrible Irish weather!

Nick's hearing aid, one of many relics on board. I naively thought I could ask a friend to send a recent model for Nick to try out so that he could take advantage of the rich features available with a smart phone or similar devices, provided Nick has a smartphone (not!). His current hearing aid is probably older than Teddy. Nick once said that Josh is the first mate, he's the captain and I'm the boss onboard but I have a long way to convincing him he should give newer models a chance.

Nick, with wind swept hair, in a happy place, enjoying a sunset.

Josh, on the lookout for whales. I have the knack of being asleep whenever he spots them. I did wake him up once thinking I spotted a big whale coming towards us. It turned out to be a big log, apparently very rare where we were. @Deany, notice the flying flag in this photo?

Josh finished reeling in a fulmar which I somehow caught while attempting to fish and with Nick's help, unhooked its feet. I hope it survived. We didn't stop sailing to find out.

Fields of lupine in Iceland on our only inland trip, with Jon, the fisherman from Djupivogur.

Nick, not looking very impressed with us turning below deck into a drying room.

Maybe this is better?

Josh didn't seem to mind.

One of the least glamorous jobs on a sailing boat, dismantling the out-going toilet pump, and chipping away the calcification. Note the fresh snow on the mountain tops in the background. It's Summer! A week later Nick was back working on the toilet again because the newly installed pump was jammed once more. He thought I was the cause as I was the one who reported both incidents. I replied with, "I'm merely the messenger, not the problem" as I wasn't guilty of what they were insinuating, being the female on board. Days later we found the root cause, it was due to 30 years of calcification buildup in the outgoing tank and it happened to block up completely on my watch. We even resorted to requesting a plumber for assistance but at the 11th hour, Nick had a breakthrough with a perfect salvaged metal rod. What a hero!

Nick's other nemesis is the Paraffin stoves. They kept playing up in different ways each time he tried to fix them. The stoves not performing at full capacity did not stop Josh and I from cooking inappropriately elaborate meals which took hours to prepare. On one occasion Josh wanted to make gnocchi but we ended settling for mash instead. Even this meal of mussels with sea spinach in a cream sauce and mash took us over 2 hours, with dinner being served after midnight.

The second time we had to return to Iceland in our quest to get to Jan Mayen, because we encountered unfavourable wind direction and weather condition. We faced the same problem the day before but with the added problem of a broken steering wheel. I think the Icelandic coast guards were waging bets on us if we would ever succeed: depart, return, depart, return and finally, stay put.

 

Nick is an expert at falling asleep at any time of the day or night. Within 30 seconds of being horizontal, he's gone. We couldn't believe it when he asked us 'How do we know?'! Well, we can hear you.
We came back from a hike to find Nick in this position, as if he passed out after a wild night out.

Butter and chocolate were two consumables we kept underestimating on how much we NEEDED. Josh thought two blocks of butter should see us through the entire month. They only lasted a week. I may have been the reason why we ate so much chocolate, divided evenly among us, of course. Nick requested the new crew to bring in extra supply of Toblerone. I have a suspicion that the two blocks will last them their entire leg of the passage.

  

First lot of cod caught since arriving in Iceland. Between Nick, Josh and I, we camp up with creative ways to prepare the cod. No two meals were the same.

The steel cable jumped from the runner into the side gap and thus got jammed.

 The duck nests were so well camouflaged among the grass and rocks. If only the parent ducks didn't make so much fuss, we wouldn't know where they were. We saw 5 nests on a walk along the coast at Raufarhöfn. This nest has chicks and an unhatched egg.

Most shopping trips involve having ice-cream. This one extends to visiting the swimming pool with a bit of sight seeing along the way in Raufarhöfn.

The walk through town in search of the swimming pool. We scored big in this town because it has a sauna as well.

My pee bucket, later becomes the only bucket on board.

The northern half of Grimsey Island is technically within the Arctic Circle. We all went for the obligatory dip.

Nick's turn.

Nick attempting to take photos of our catches with my phone. This one was the best out of a burst of 100 photos. Where is my cod? No evidence of it being bigger than Josh's!

I said to Nick he needed more practice. This is the result at the next attempt.

I took over watch from Josh who enjoyed a stunning sunset followed by a short, clear evening and a beautiful sunrise. Within 5 minutes of me getting on deck the fog rolled in, thick and fast. We were wrapped in it for the next 14 hours. I really needed to pay a visit to my bucket but with visibility being so poor and the chaps fast asleep, I hung on at the helm for 5 hours.

 

Pretty sure the shore is close by.

We were bathed in glorious sunshine as we came into this cove. From outside, the fog looks like a giant wave about to take out Teddy and Pangey, with Mike Henderson (updating his sailing guide for Iceland, Faroes Island and Greenland) and Helen Goud on board.

Good opportunity for us to have some personal space and gather our thoughts.

Our different choices of footwear.

Our favourite bay in all of Iceland, well, among those we visited.

Teddy, looking like she totally belong here.

Just our luck, with ropes wrapped around the propeller and not a breath of wind. Nick towing Teddy, Josh on the lookout and giving direction while I was at the helm. We didn't get very far after an hour of rowing, water visibility was still not good enough to jump in and free the propeller. We played Scrabble instead and waited for the wind to pick up. It turned out to be our final game. I was the winner this time but Nick usually wins.

The wind eventually picked up in the late afternoon and Josh psyched himself up for another plunge. This time the water was much colder and he couldn't finish the job so we decided to sail to Isafjordur without a working engine.

 

Everything was sorted by the time Darren arrived. Only thing left to do was go to the local brewery. Such a shame I forgot to ask for a photo of all of us, with Diego, as we were sitting on Teddy in the last 5 minutes before I departed.

But here he is in the background. We went fishing the minute Diego step foot on Teddy. Darren caught the biggest cod we've seen, on his extremely light tackle. The line got wrapped around its mouth three times. It wasn't going anywhere. As usual, dinner was not served until midnight. Such a great end to my passage with this lot.

Having finally finished, I did not intend for this particular piece to be so long nor take so much time but these moments meant a lot to me. I hope you got a sense of what it was like being on Teddy.