Day 12

Today was one I’ll remember for the rest of my life! My 22nd birthday spent in the middle of the north Atlantic on route from the Faroes to Iceland.

I was on watch with Tony as midnight approached, I couldn’t work out why he was checking his watch so many times, was he counting down till he was off watch? Nope turns out he was making sure he wished me a happy birthday at exactly 0000. A small gesture, but one that means a lot when you’re hundreds of miles from home.

For a change, the north Atlantic decided to give us a break. The sea settled right down and the sun came out, with everyone’s morale lifted. After a few days of being battered around by the waves, it felt nice to be at rest and having the crew on top deck listening to tunes.

Kris cooked up a stir fry in the evening, which hit the spot after another day at sea. He also made sure I didn’t forget it was my birthday by reminding me several times I look like an old lady now. Cheers for that mate.
Later in the evening we also found out the rest of the team all arrived in Iceland safely! The lads completely caught me off guard. They surprised me with some presents and a birthday card. The best part was that it had “20” on the front, but they’d changed it to “22” with some zinc oxide tape. It gave everyone a good laugh, I thought it was class! It really made my birthday feel that extra special.

As if the day/night couldn’t get any better…. I was spinning dits on watch with Simon, we had the tunes and the disco lights going, out of nowhere I looked past Simon and spotted what we thought were either dolphins or whales surfacing about 70m away. It was a cool way to round off the day. A memory I will never forget!

Meanwhile in Iceland.........

From London, Edinburgh and Copenhagen the advance party set their compass needles pointing towards north and the volcanic geographical delight of Keflavik airport. Safely on the ground, a quick assessment of the voluminous amount of baggage we had brought reached the obvious conclusion, that it alone exceeded the size of the Hyundai i30 hatchback the hire company had allocated us! Thankfully, if there is one thing that is plentiful in Iceland, then it is 4x4s, preferably big with even bigger wheels. Hence, we were soon properly equipped with a pickup, and the Exped shore-based facilitation work could begin. We set up camp in the Air BnB which to our delight had plenty of Admin space, and we soon found that we needed every square inch - Poul