Farewell Mr Puffin

by Paul Heiney

  The third ship was the Ross Cleveland, which went down with 19 on board, one having been put ashore through illness. However, he wasn’t the luckiest member of the Ross Cleveland’s crew. In atrocious hurricane conditions, she had tried to enter the large fjord to the north of Isafjöður into which I had breezed so easily. Other fishing vessels had the same idea and the skipper found that in the worsening conditions he had insufficient room to steer without colliding with other trawlers that were steaming slowly up and down the fjord, unable to anchor because of the worsening conditions. The Ross Cleveland ended up in hardly any shelter at all and was effectively still at sea in the worst weather in living memory.

  It was probably the icing that did for her, too. Phil Gay, the captain, sent his last radio message: ‘I am going over. We are laying over. Help me. I am going over. Give my love and the crew’s love to the wives and families.’

  By remarkable good fortune, three of the crew managed to scramble into a liferaft, but in appalling conditions two succumbed to the cold and died. This left the mate, Harry Eddom, alone on a tossing, freezing sea with the corpses of two of his shipmates. After several hours, the liferaft was washed ashore but there was nothing that Eddom could see that might provide any refuge. Imagine the anguish when one small farmhouse proved to be deserted, so he dragged himself up the cliff face and trudged miles over open land to find shelter. He had landed in the next fjord south from Isafjöður, which I must have sailed past. He was the only survivor and was celebrated back in Hull as ‘the man who came back from the dead’. He has not spoken of his experiences since.

  And to think I was getting grumpy because I was having a slightly lumpy ride. Bah!

  18

  Hot tub to cold tub – the best medicine

  Was my decision to head for the town of Siglufjörður going to turn into some terrible mistake? In a cold, early dawn, not long after four in the morning, I peered into the mist and saw a small town at the head of a bay. It looked depressingly like all the other towns. Where was the hint of ski resort I was promised, where the attractive small town with beguiling harbour that the combination of pilot book and guidebook had promised? After a night of relentless motoring against an annoying swell, which was rolling straight on to my bows, reducing our speed to a frustrating crawl, I was hoping for better than this. Siglufjörður, at first glance, disappointed.

  I could see nowhere decent to secure, let alone anything you might call a harbour. Was I even in the right place? A decrepit old barge was leaning against a haphazard sea wall made of rearranged rocks and was listing heavily, clearly filling with water at every tide. I crept up to its crumbling hull and managed to get a line round a cleat that was more rust than metal. With the greatest caution, I stepped on to the flaking decks to make myself secure. This was clearly nowhere to spend a week. Looking across, I saw a lengthy quayside alongside which lay one of those monstrous fully paid-up members of the Icelandic fishing fleet, its bows casting dark shadows on everything around, and no signs of life. Ahead of her was sufficient space for me and, fearing the imminent disintegration of the barge, I undid all the lines I had spent time putting out, and motored across. I chose a spot close to what appeared to be an electricity supply – always useful.

  But another problem became apparent. Trawlers of this majestic size are effectively floating factories and demand a power supply to match. They are the new Moby Dicks, large and powerful enough to swallow anything alive, and to do this they carry huge generating plants, small powers stations really, which need to run day and night. Since soundproofing is not usually a problem when at sea because there are no neighbours to complain, little effort goes into containing the din. It rattled everything in poor old Wild Song. I might as well have been moored on a motorway hard shoulder for all the peace and quiet I was going to get here. I was too tired to get out the books and charts and think about heading for somewhere else, so thought I’d walk into town, have a nosy around, and hope that the trawler might have cleared off before I came back.

  I stumbled ashore in the way you do when you haven’t had enough sleep, trudged through the outskirts of what appeared to be and smelled like a fish factory, and headed down the criss-cross pattern of the roads, hoping to be heading for the town. There were rusting containers, derelict machinery, tall chimneys that didn’t smoke, steel-clad sheds with no windows and no clue as to what might be happening there. Even looking into the far distance there was nothing in any way promising. A children’s playground looked grim and neglected. A school, painted a deep, violent red, had all the outward charm of a Dickensian institution.

  But hang on a minute. I turned right and the buildings took on a more spruced look. I found a tidy square with a town hall, the inevitable church with wooden spire, a decent-looking supermarket and, lo and behold, a coffee shop stuffed with pastries and sandwiches and, more to the point, open.

  I sat for a while munching and absorbing several cups of coffee, once again on agreeable free refill terms, and noticed that on the far side of the buildings there appeared to be a gathering of small fishing boats. I supped up and headed off.

  I hadn’t gone far before the real harbour confronted me, far removed from the industrial suburb in which I’d already parked. There were neat and tidy wooden pontoons, a restaurant on one side, a newly built hotel and conference centre on the other, all within an easy stroll of shops, coffee and well-appointed lavatories – my onboard sanitation issues had yet to be sorted. This was the place I needed to be, so I sprinted back to the boat, where I found the trawler’s din was now so intense that I couldn’t even focus my mind on reading the chart, let alone getting any rest. I slung off the lines and motored round as fast as I could, fearing that someone might get ahead of me, take the very last space and condemn me to a week of having my head rattled by the fish-guzzling monster astern of me.

  The pilot book was a bit vague about where I should tie up. I tried first to attach myself to the pontoon outside the hotel, but an offshore breeze blew me away from it every time I got close – such games are always that bit more difficult when you are on your own. After the second attempt failed, I spotted someone waving to me from the far shore, beckoning me over. There was a gap between fishing boats, which looked perfect. I gave a thumbs up and got one in reply. The fisherman was waiting for me as I approached and grabbed my lines as I threw them ashore. We exchanged the usual pleasantries, in English – where have you come from, where were you last, and so on. He was half Greek, half Icelandic, and told me it was ‘Fisherman’s Day’, when they all went to church to thank God. I hardly dared ask the next question – was it all right to stay here? He nodded approval. I thanked God myself for that reply. I could not have imagined a better berth, far from the misery on the outskirts of town. Feeling glad to be here, rejoicing almost, I crept back to the coffee shop and dosed myself once again with stiff black coffee and energy-giving pastries dripping in fat and sugar.

  But I could not completely relax. Sanitation issues were hanging over me like the darkest of clouds; a constipated confusion of thoughts in my head as to how I was going to remedy my plumbing problem, which I now had just five days to fix. I was expecting a new crew, Crispin, who had not sailed before other than on tall ships and may not be familiar with life aboard a small yacht. If my second sentence of welcome began with the words ‘…and by the way, the lavatory isn’t working’, I couldn’t be quite certain he wouldn’t take the next bus out of town. In fact, he was the least likely person in the world to react in such a way, but I wasn’t to know that then.

  Heads. What a lovely word to describe a ship’s lavatory, and a precise one too, for in the days before plumbing, the sanitation would consist of little more than a hole in the deck, often near the bowsprit or the ‘head’ of the ship, with a clear drop below into the sea. The attraction of this placing was that it was far removed from the accommodation, and the inevitable action of the passing waves on the bow of the ship would cause enough spray to wash it down and keep it swee
t. How I longed for a system of such simplicity.

  I always marvel at how boatbuilders put boats together, and I remain convinced that they do it in such a way as to confound any maintenance attempts an owner might make. There is a locker in my heads where we keep boots and oilskins; it is deep and there are many long-forgotten items, such as sandals from the days when I sailed in places with sandy beaches. These I flung out one by one till they formed a heap on the cabin floor. Now, with my head bent at a crazy angle, and with the help of a torch, I could peer down and just about see a tangle of thick, white pipes, which carried the waste from the lavatory pan to the sea. But which one? And which went from the bowl to the holding tank, and what was that other one for, and why did this one gurgle when I pumped and…? The questions came thick and fast, the solution made all the more impossible because some pipes disappeared down the inside of the boat, out of sight, impossible to trace. I despaired. To find the blockage I would need to be certain where every pipe went, be able to detach it from the system, and unless I could do that I was never going to make progress.

  Back to the coffee shop to buy some thinking time. I tried to form some words to explain to Crispin that everything would have to be done in a bucket and chucked over the side – a tried, tested and foolproof method of dealing with things. But I don’t like sailing a boat where something doesn’t work, because when one more thing goes wrong, then another, you are into a fast-descending spiral that leads to trouble. Best to have every bit of gear working as if it’s fresh from the factory.

  Powerful stuff, this Icelandic coffee. An idea came! I sprang up, clear in my mind what needed to happen. What a confused and bewildered fool I had been. I had become so trapped in the intricacies of the problem that I had been unable to see the obvious, simple solution. I needed to strip the problem down to its basics, and start from there.

  I had easy access to the outlet from the lavatory pan, and easy access to the large bronze fitting in the hull through which the waste goes to the sea. It was the in between bit that wasn’t working. So why not get rid of it instead of trying to fix it? Instead of looking at something and fretting about what it was and how it worked, I needed instead to focus on what it did and replicate that. All I had to do was remove the existing pipe from toilet and sea cock, then join them with a new piece of pipe and lavatory life would be sweet once more. I assembled the tools, which consisted of a hacksaw to cut the pipe, stout screwdriver to undo the jubilee clips and a hot-air blower, a bit like a hairdryer, to heat the pipe and make it flexible. Thank God for electricity. This kind of pipework is stiff and bulky, very hard to bend and tricky to slip over fittings. A bit of heat, not too much, reduces it to jelly and saves hours of cursing. I picked up the hacksaw, like a butcher about to go through a carcass, and applied it to the pipework, then paused. I would need a new piece of pipe to replace the length I was about to remove. I didn’t have one. Back home, it would have been but a stroll to the chandler. Here, it might be more of a problem.

  There are no such things as chandleries here where you can buy flimsy little things like yacht fittings. There are shops where you can buy blocks and pulleys the size of a small car for use on trawlers, but toy stuff, like yachts use, is not to be found. But surely they used plastic pipe, even on these high-tech fishing monsters? Everyone needs pipe. Unnerved now at the thought that I was about to make my situation worse, I decided to go hunting.

  Sitting in an office on a plinth overlooking the town, king-like, was the harbourmaster. I climbed the few steps to his perch, knocked on the door and got a welcome in English. Good start. I nervously made my request. He jumped to his feet, a man enthused, clearly grateful for an excuse to dump his dreary paperwork. He grabbed his car keys and beckoned, ‘Come’.

  I had no idea how far we were going and was somewhat disappointed when it only turned out to be a couple of blocks; it would have been quicker to walk, given the time it took him to get the stuttering old pickup engine going. He introduced me to a dungaree-clad engineer, who took my request with great seriousness and scuttled to the upper floor of his workshop, returning with a vast coil of hose, just the job, the required size. The constipation would soon be over.

  Back on the boat, I took the saw to the old waste pipe with confidence. The blade easily slipped through the plastic, but the sound became more gritty as I went further into it. When it fell away, the true scale of the problem – literally scale – revealed itself. Instead of being over an inch and a half wide, the internal dimensions of that pipe had reduced themselves to the point where you’d have difficulty getting a pencil in there, let alone what I was asking of it. It was a tiny hole, very tiny, surrounded by something that looked like pee-coloured cement, and it was hard. This is not an uncommon problem in marine toilets. Sea water that runs past chalk cliffs, across beaches with shells, and has done for millions of years, is stuffed with carbonates. When your urine decomposes it produces ammonia and when this meets the carbonates they precipitate – a bit like condensation – and stick to the sides of the pipe. This is what was staring me in the face. When it was gone, and the new pipe put in its place, normal service was resumed. I can remember no greater lavatorial relief in my life.

  Left stiff and aching by the bending, squatting, and working with my head upside down for most of the day, I sought refuge in the swimming pool, which had become my daily therapy of choice. It didn’t disappoint. Built on a larger scale than others I had been to, this pool had the dimensions of a school hall and you could swim proper lengths, if you wished. Exercise was the last thing I was seeking – I needed comfort. I stepped outside into the chilly air and headed for the hottest of the three tubs and slid, with a deep sigh, into the water. It was six in the evening, the end of the working day, and others joined me and started to gossip in gruff Icelandic. I told them, in English, that I was a visitor, but they weren’t interested. I now see the place these swimming pools hold in their society, for slipping into the water at the end of the working day was their equivalent of dropping into the pub for a pint on the way home. They joked, muttered, dropped their voice as you might when talking about a neighbour and then went on their way, intoxicated by immersion.

  The tub was almost too hot to bear but I felt it doing me no end of good. And then I spotted, on the far side, a small pool into which water tumbled from a drainpipe. I watched a brave girl slide into it, yelping as she did so. It was the cold plunge. I pretended I hadn’t seen it. There was no obligation on my part to try it, surely? But I knew from the moment I spotted it that I’d have to try it, no matter how many excuses I came up with. I had some personal pride left. So I stepped out of the hot bath and was shivering before I’d even got as far as the cold tub. I held my hand under the end of the drainpipe and watched my finger ends shrivel in the icy flow. This was meltwater, which thundered down the hillside from the thawing snow that still draped the height around. Moments before, this water had been ice.

  I certainly wasn’t going to allow any display of weakness. There would be no gasping or yelping, oh no. Slowly would have been a mistake, I reckoned, and would only prolong the pain, so I plunged both feet in the icy water and sat firmly down on the step. The moments after are something of a blur, but pain ran up one leg, through my body, and down the other. Keep calm, breathe! I counted to the longest ten I have ever known then dashed back to the hot tub, which is supposed to be how the therapy works. I repeated this at least half a dozen times and, remarkably, felt on top of the world. My constitution felt entirely at ease, and the comfort of a fully working lavatory to go with it.

  19

  The Arctic Circle, in shorts

  I now had four clear days to start behaving like a tourist, and not like a sailor. My boat became a bed and breakfast, or rather bunk and whatever I could be bothered to cook. One thing cheered the cuisine no end. There was a real fish shop a short walk from the boat. It was a simple shop, which shunned spin in its promotion and instead starkly advertised Meat – Herring – Fish. You wouldn’t
think that fresh fish would be tricky to source in the country that catches the best of it, but anything that isn’t frozen or packaged seemed remarkably rare. I bought chunks of dense white fish, cod probably, and cooked it almost every night. It smelled fresh and of the sea, not fishy and with no hint of ammonia, which is always a sign of fish that has been hanging around a bit too long. It was almost as good as that sublime cod that Alan ‘caught’ last season, and that’s saying something. But it wasn’t cheap. It is strange that fresh fish bought over the counter here is reckoned to be 10 per cent more expensive than fresh fish you’d buy anywhere in the rest of Europe. Why that should be when all they have to do is haul it from the ships to just down the road is a mystery. There’s lots about the Icelandic economy that doesn’t add up. The value of the currency swings up and down like a fat banker on the end of a bungee rope; it goes through years of great boom followed by grievous bust, and running a household here is, on average, 66 per cent more expensive than anywhere else, even more expensive than Denmark and Norway. My pocket felt the pain on every shopping expedition, not helped by the state of sterling, which was having one of its headaches and shrinking fast.