Tag Archives: seydisfjordur

Tuesday 28th April 2020 – AND I WASN’T …

trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france eric hall… alone tonight either.

There might only have been a handful of people out there this evening enjoying the evening sun but there was enough going on out on the open sea to keep me out of mischief for quite a while

The tide must have been just right this evening because the fishing boats were queueing up to get to the Fish-Processing plant tonight.

As for me, this morning I beat the third alarm just for a change.

Well, to tell the truth I was sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor when the alarm went off. So I reckon that that counts as a victory for me.

Nothing on the dictaphone which is a shame (what I get up to during the night is far more exciting than anything that I get up to during the day). I’m always disappointed when I haven’t been anywhere or, more to the point, there’s been no-one with me to share my adventures.

Which reminds me – TOTGA hasn’t put in an appearance for quite a while. I wonder where she’s got to.

After breakfast I started on the digitalising. Two albums again. Long, bitty, slow with plenty of searching and one or two versions that i’ve found aren’t the versions that I want but it can’t be helped.

Nevertheless I did almost 40 photos from July 2019 in Iceland and I could have done many more than that except that I got myself into a tangle at one point and had to undo what i’d done and start again.

But at least I’ve managed to escape from Seydisfjordur. It’s the following day and we’re just pulling into the Berufjördur and about to drop anchor off the port of Djúpivogur.

Unbelievably, this took me all the way up to lunchtime and I was pretty fed up of it by that time, as you can imagine. There have to be easier ways of earning a living.

This afternoon I started on the notes for the current radio project and by the time that it came to knocking-off time, I’d written all of the notes, dictated them, uploaded them to the computer and started to edit them.

And had I put my back into it I could have finished except that I … errr … had a little relax at one point. For about half an hour too.

That was disappointing because I missed my carrot-freezing session and that will have to be tomorrow afternoon, assuming that I’m not held up with any other blasted flaming file-splitting

The hour (or more, as it happened) was enjoyable tonight and my playing on the 6-string is improving. Mind you, that’s not saying much. I just wish that my bass-playing would improve. i’m stuck in a rut with that and need to break out.

Tea was a burger in a bap and baked potato, followed by blackberry pie and almond soya stuff. And I have to say that the pie has worked in spades. That expensive jam stuff worked really well and I’ll have to do more of that. I wonder what other varieties they have.

trawler english channel granville manche normandy france eric hallSo off I went for my evening run.

And it was agonising to make my way to the top of the hill tonight, due to the headwind that was blowing me backwards all the time. But I eventually made it down to the clifftop to see the fleet of trawlers heading back to harbour

Surprisingly, I was the only one out here tonight admiring them too. I don’t know where everyone else has got to.

trawlers chantier navale granville manche normandy france eric hallhaving recovered my breath I ran on around the headland and past the chantier navale

And we’ve had a change of occupant in there today. We’re now back up to four boats with the arrival of the black and green one over there on the right.

The other three are still here and they’ve been here for a bit too. I wonder for how long the new one will be staying. But anyway it’s good to see the yard busy. The presence of a good, thriving ship repairer will encourage other people to moor their boats here, and that’s good for the town.

trawlers baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france eric hallEarlier on, I mentioned that the fishing boats were queueing up to come into the harbour.

And it wasn’t an idle boast either. There are two of them here loitering around just outside the harbour presumably waiting for a berth to become vacant at the fish-processing plant.

And you can tell that they are waiting to unload by the flocks of seagulls that are hovering around all over them. I hope that the matelots are all wearing hats.

trawlers fishing boats fish processing plant port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallBut you cans ee why they are having to loiter around outside the harbour.

There’s definitely no room at the in tonight with all of the boats here. As one pulls away, another one swings into its place.

The larger commercial boats used the cranes to pull up their catch to the top level where they are wheeled into the fish processing plant.

The smaller boats that are usually operated by private individuals or local shops usually unload by hand onto the deck-level underneath where it’s taken away up the ramp in their own vehicles, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a couple of weeks ago we saw a tractor and trailer down there carting stuff off.

new floating pontoon supports ferry terminal port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallBut hang on a minute – did you catch a glimpse of this in the previous photo?

Now we know why they’ve spent weeks dredging by the ferry terminal and cutting away the rock outcrop, and why they pulled up the cast-iron pillars that we saw a few months ago.

It looks ver much as if we’re going to be having the new pontoons over there too. They are the same, identical mounting brackets that they have used elsewhere in the port.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when we have them and the tide goes out.

floating pontoon port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallTalking of pontoons, here’s the big floating pontoon that they’ve been using as a work platform.

Today, it seems to have acquired a mini-digger and a crate of gas bottles. It looks as if they are going to be doing a lot of welding right now. I wonder why.

Reflecting on that point I carried on with my run, and past an old woman who made a few remarks. I was tempted to stop and give her a piece of my mind but I don’t have all that much to spare.

sunset english channel port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallNo-one else admiring the sunset from the rue du Port with me tonight. I was all on my own.

But then again I wasn’t surprised because it wasn’t much of a sunset tonight. It was all obscured by clouds like this, with a clear sky above and the red sunset glow below.

It looks as if we’ve had the splendid evenings for a while. So I carried on home.

no waiting signs parking foyer des jeunes travailleurs place d'armes granville manche normandy france eric hallBut having run back to the apartment building I had to turn round and go back to the car park of the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs because I’d noticed something.

This was rather a forlorn hope, wasn’t it? No waiting in the car park for this week as they are repainting the markings on the surface. But that didn’t go ahead of course and it’s no surprise. It’s not what I call essential work in these difficult times.

So in a few minutes I’ll be off to bed. But before I go, I’ll leave you with a little comment.

Usually, I’ve been trying very hard to steer away from political comment in my journal. If you want to follow what’s going on in the political world right now you need to follow me on my social networking account.

But I couldn’t let this one pass by.

As regular readers of this rubbish will know, the silly Brits voted 4 years ago to kick out all of the foreigners who have been “stealing their jobs”.

As well as that, Brits are being laid off work in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands due to the effects of this virus and are thus presumably short of money. And there’s a shortage of food in the shops.

With no foreign workers to pick the fruit and veg in the fields in this time of food shortage in the UK, the farming organisations launched a huge advertising campaign throughout the country to get the unemployed and poverty-stricken, starving Brits into the fields.

They needed 70,000 people to replace the foreigners who have been kicked out of the UK and won’t come back. And do you know how many of the unemployed and poverty-stricken, starving Brits turned up for work?

Just ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE.

And this is how they intend to rebuild the economy after Brexit and after the virus. They are totally deluded over there on that island.

Saturday 25th April 2020 – ANOTHER BAD …

… day today unfortunately. But then, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it all comes and goes in waves and I’ll probably feel much better in a couple of days.

Last night was something of a later night than I was expecting but even so, not as late as some have been. And that’s why I was dreadfully disappointed about missing the alarm again. 07:00 when I finally left the bed.

After the medication I went to find out where I had been during the night. Not very far by the looks of things. We were having a radio meeting but sending our comments to each other as “comments” on a youtube video. That’s all I seem to remember of it so that was a waste of time.

Breakfast was next and then I made a start on digitalising the two albums for today. However, I broke off at some point early on to go and have a shower.

And of the 800 grammes that I lost and then put back on, I’ve lost 400 of them. So I’ve no idea what’s going on with my bathroom scales but as I have said before … “many times … sigh” – ed … my bathroom scales are about as reliable as the blood testing machine at Castle Anthrax.

NOZ is still closed – I went to have a look – and although the car park at LeClerc was half-empty and there was no queue outside waiting to go in, there were certainly more than 100 people inside.

At long last they had my small tins of kidney beans in stock but no pizza bases again. And no pizza flour either. But I bought some ordinary flour last time so I’m going to have a go at making some bread and maybe a pizza base or two tomorrow and see how it comes out, just for fun.

Hummus is getting rather low too so, for a change, I spent a little money and bought a pot of sun-dried tomatoes in oil. I reckon that minced up with some olives and garlic with basil, that would make a delicious hummus for the next round.

But I didn’t really spend an awful lot in there today but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference to the shopping bill because I’m convinced (as are many others) that prices are slowly going up.

By the time that I returned it was quite late so I had a coffee and then made lunch.

There were two albums that I had been digitalising today and it took me until something like 15:45 to finish them. But they were both big double albums with plenty of tracks and I managed to find them all without too much searching and only the odd two or three that needed some persuasion.

These are really classic albums too and almost every track is one that I can use on the radio so it was a very good job.

However, I don’t know why but I crashed out again this afternoon. A really deep, intense one that beats all of the ones that I’ve had to date and I remember thinking to myself at one point that this is no good at all.

It’s right, as well. It is no good. But one thing that I did mention 9 months or so ago was that I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and look on the bright side. Adopt a more positive attitude. That was something going on through my head when I was out later on for my runs.

First thing of course is that I’m still here. That’s confounded many people, especially those who saw me in January and February 2016. Back in those days I couldn’t even walk unaided so what would they say now to the fact that according to the fitbit, so far this month up to Tuesday (21 days) I’d run for a total of 3 hours and 40 minutes, or just over 10 minutes per day.

And just 18 months ago I was standing up to my knees in frozen water at Etah in Greenland, just 600 or so miles from the North Pole? Or 6 months ago I was wrestling with my conscience and my better judgement (not to mention my totally foul humour) as I traversed the North West Passage – a voyage that has killed a couple of thousand people in the past.

Another thing too – and that I’m living in my dream location with the sea lapping at my feet and working in a radio station where I’m given a free hand to write, engineer, direct and produce my own programmes.

None of any of this would have happened had I not been taken ill.

There was still a few minutes to go before guitar practice time so I made a start on bringing up to date the playlist for the Rock show (well, we were talking about the radio just now). It’s fallen way behind and there’s a lot to do. I probably did about a quarter of it and I’ll have a go at the rest tomorrow.

During the course of the day I edited another 25 photos from July 2019 and I’m now climbing up the side of a mountain to a waterfall in Seydisfjordur in Iceland. And I wouldn’t have been here either had I not been ill.

After the guitar session, during which I had some fun with Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath”, I had tea. Burger and pasta in tomato sauce with vegetables, followed by more apple crumble.

flags germany united kingdom united states of america france war memorial resistance granville manche normandy france eric hallIt would be wrong to say that I was alone out there tonight. But half a dozen or so people is a lot less than I’ve been seeing just recently.

There was nothing – nothing whatever – going on out to sea. I couldn’t see a boat or a ship anywhere. But there was a beautiful breeze that really made it a pleasure to be out (which was why i started to feel a little more positive) and the new flags on the flagpoles were flapping away wildly.

There hasn’t been a photo of them from this angle yet so I thought that the lighting conditions would make quite an unusual shot

la grande ancre port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallHaving recovered my breath I went on round the headland and ran along the clifftop on the other side of the headland.

In the distance I could see a boat parked up in the unloading bay so i was wondering if it might have been Thora or Normandy Trader. We haven’t seen them for a few days.

But it is in fact our old friend La Grande Ancre tied up down there and that’s confusing me because I was sure that I saw her sail out earlier in the day when I was on my way to shopping.

sunset ile de chausey english channel granville manche normandy france eric hallHaving inwardly digested La Grande Ancre I carried on with my runs. And I do have to say that i seem to be running a little easier today and my fourth run – the longest – I added another 20 yards. I can’t be feeling too bad.

An additional surprise – I put in another 25-yard run, from a standing start uphill. And that is something that wouldn’t have happened even a week or two ago. This took me round to the rue du Nord where I could go to see what the sunset was doing.

The answer to that question was “not a lot”.

sunset ile de chausey english channel granville manche normandy france eric hallThere was plenty of cloud out there this evening and we didn’t have the clear sky that would have given us a magnificent evening as we have had once or twice just recently.

Nevertheless, a little patience brought out a couple of really interesting photos as the setting sun put in a brief appearance between a gap in a couple of clouds.

But it didn’t stay long. A couple of minutes and it had gone again behind the vloud on the horizon.

sunset ile de chausey english channel granville manche normandy france eric hallThat must have been something of a disappointment to the girl whom I’ve seen for the last couple of evenings.

She and her friend came down the steps for a butcher’s at the sunset but they were too late tonight. However, at least I had a “bonsoir” and a smile, which is always nice.

So everything is finished – and so am I – just a couple of minutes before 23:00. Even though tomorrow is Sunday and a Day Of Rest with no alarm to awaken me, i’m off to bed early.

It’s some hope, I know, but I hope that I’ll feel better tomorrow. That evening breeze cheered me up a little so I hope that it’s the start of an upward trend.

We shall see.

Friday 12th July 2019 – LAST NIGHT …

… I mentioned the overwhelmingly thick fog that we had encountered coming out of Seydisfjordur. This morning when we awoke, the situation hadn’t improved and we were swathed in a rather thick blanket of nebulous nonsense.

I heard the alarm go off at 06:00 and then again at 06:07. However I did manage to beat the 06:20 alarm, although there wasn’t all that much in it.

The weather wasn’t all that good for photography but I took a couple just to be on the safe side, and then went in to breakfast;

After breakfast we put on our winter clothing and headed out to the zodiacs. The sea was calm but visibility was pretty poor and it was trying to rain. We made it ashore at the small town of Djupivogur without any major mishap, but we aren’t staying here. There are a couple of buses waiting for us to take us onward. One of them was an elderly MAN-engined Bova Futura, tri-axle and 15 metres long. Quite naturally I leapt aboard.

After about an hour’s drive we stopped at the Foss Hotel for a toilet break as we were not so equipped on our bus. It gave me an opportunity to have a little wander around and take a couple of photos of the Icelandic scenery. Here on the east coast, the coastal alluvial plain is very good farming country, although it’s compressed up against the mountains in the same way that the land is on the western coast of Newfoundland.

Back on our bus we headed off to the glacial lagoon. Here at the foot of the VatnaJokull ice field, a glacier discharges its icebergs into a lagoon and we had come here to witness it. After all, ice fields, glaciers and icebergs won’t be around for much longer at the current rate of global warming.

We were really lucky too. A huge part of the glacier had calved off a few days ago and the lagoon was littered with icebergs waiting to melt down so that they would be small enough to drift out to see on the meltwater current. There’s a submerged terminal moraine that stops them floating straight out.

First item on the agenda was a good walk down to the lagoon and around its edges looking at the ice. It really was so spectacular down there; A little further around I found a ruined, collapsed bridge. It would be nice to think that it had been brought down by an iceberg or an ice field, but that is extremely unlikely.

Lunch was arranged for us too, and they did me proud with a vegan carrot soup followed by ratatouille. No complaints at all there, except that a second helping would have been delicious.

Once lunch was over we donned more wet-weather gear and headed off to one of their zodiacs. A young Czech student took us out for a ride around the lagoon to see the icebergs, the ice face and to tell us all about the place and the history. And it started to rain while we were out there.

Our zodiac was almost the last back so our bus was last to leave. And on the way back we were waylaid for 15 minutes by a pack of harbour seals on a gravel bank just offshore. One of them was having a whale of a time floundering and flouncing about in the water, giving all of us quite a performance.

With a pit stop too back at the Foss Hotel, we were definitely the last back at the quayside and the zodiac crews had gone to sleep. There wasn’t time to put on our wet-weather gear because we needed to leave our anchorage pretty smartly, so we all ended up rather damp, as by now it was raining quite heavily.

Back on board, I headed for a shower. Not because I needed one but because it’s the quickest way of warming me up. And I washed my clothes too. They were quite wet anyway with the rain so they would benefit.

After tea I lounged around for a while but there’s a late breakfast on offer tomorrow so now is the time for an early night, I reckon and I can catch up on my beauty sleep.

If only …

Thursday 11th July 2019 – WE’VE HAD …

… a really busy day today. And I do mean busy.

Last night I had a very mixed night – I went to bed early, fell asleep watching a film, managed to awaken in time to switch everything off and go back to sleep.

Nevertheless i was awake enough at about 04:00 and again at 05:50 but hardly in any mood to leave the bed except for the usual reasons that any man of my age will know.

Once the alarms all went off (I found my phone last night under a couple of pieces of paper as I was tidying up) I had a struggle to leave my stinking pit, but once on deck I found that we were pulling in to the port of Seydisfjordur.

And we weren’t alone either, for there was a big car ferry, the MS Norrona, moored alongside. This is the ferry that goes to the Faroe Islands and Denmark and how I would have liked to have gone for a ride on that in order to come across the North Sea.

Mind you, I would have had a few logistics problems as it’s a once-a-week only sailing. And then I would have to get to Reykjavik. But there were hordes of cars of all kinds of European countries lined up ready to board, and streams of ditto disembarking all over the place. There were even several British vehicles.

After Breakfast I came back to my room where I … errr … had a little rest and almost missed my call at 08:40.

Jessie led us on a photography hike to the waterfall where we climbed up to the top of the path and took a pile of photos. The day had started off cold but by the time that I was on top I had divested myself of almost everything.

Back into town afterwards, where on the way I stumbled across an ancient Scandinavian vehicle. No idea what it is so I shall have to do some research. But while I was doing that, the ferry loaded up and sailed out. “Gone and never called me mother” as they might have said in “East Lynne”.

We photographed the Rainbow Walk and a few other places in the town centre and then off to the church.

On the way back to the ship I came across the local scrapyard where I spent a very pleasant half hour poking around the ruins and relics. Nothing all that exciting or old unfortunately. But while I was continuing on to the ship, another cruise ship pulled in and tied up to where the ferry had been.

One mug of tea later we were back on shore. Rosemary had missed the church so I took her there, only to find that it had closed for lunch. So we went for a walk and a visit to a couple of arty places. But by now the wind had increased and it was going bitterly cold. A hanging cloud was rolling up the fjord making things worse.

Back yet again at the ship and I fetched my packed lunch as we were off on the bus.

First stop was at an archaeological site at Thorunnarstadir where an old Norse church had been discovered. We had a good look around it. They had come across and excavated a graveyard there, of which half of the bodies had been interred in the foetal position indicating a pagan burial, but others in the more usual Christian style. Iceland was Christianised at 1000AD so the church and the Christian burials would date from some time round about then.

But it’s interesting to speculate about what might have been on the site prior to the church that led to it being chosen as a site for pagan burials. There was a Norse village here that has yet to be properly investigated, and interestingly, a modern village had sprung up in the immediate vicinity but had been abandoned comparatively recently, in the last 50 or so years.

While they were excavating the church they unearthed some relics and these are now in the museum at Rejkjavik.

On we went to the Skalanes nature reserve at the edge of the fjord. We were given a discussion on lupins, how they were planted to anchor and fertilise the soil but how they have gone on the rampage and found to be most pervasive – the country is covered in them. There were plenty of rhubarb and angelica growing here in the neighbourhood.

Dodging the terns, we went to a cliff site to see the nesting birds but I was more interested in the geological formations. And a gyrfalcon put in an appearance but unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough with the camera.

There was a pile of feathers lying around and it was explained to us that a short while ago a Skua had caught a fulmar, drowned it to kill it, and then dragged the carcass onshore for a feast. This had all taken place in front of a crowd of onlookers.

The road out there was narrow and treacherous and involved driving through several rough, rocky fords where there were several impressive waterfalls. It was a good job that we had a 4 wheel drive bus.

Tea was a barbecue and I almost missed it, having a shower and a clothes wash, followed by yet another relax.

We had a chat afterwards, including a young American boy, and now I’m off for an early night. I need it too. There won’t be any photography tonight because we are now encased in an overwhelmingly thick fog.