Day 143 – Wednesday 12th August 2026
Reading time: 7 minutes
It is the day of the eclipse. Yesterday it was calm during the day and so we managed to get ashore in our little dinghy.
We went to see the weather ballon being launched but got our local time and GMT muddled. We asked the meteorologist whether he could help us plan the weather for our route home and he told us that they tend to use Windy!
We enjoyed our visit to the little museum and learnt a bit more about the local culture.
We had a very rolly-polly night on anchor with a swell working its way into the anchorage from the sea. The wind was blowing off the land so we were taking the waves side-on. We played Scrabble to pass the time, one of the joys of not having Starlink.
In the morning the swell had stopped but the wind piped up to a good force 6, or 14 volts on the Aerogen wind generator! One other yacht (Barba from Norway) joined us in the otherwise deserted anchorage. They sailed off later, not sure where to.
We let out some more grade 70 x 8mm chain and lengthened the nylon three strand snubber to 10m to absorb the shocks. Although the wind was howling through the rigging, we felt safe with our 15kg Rocna anchor well dug in. The sun was out here in the bay, but in the Sound there was fog. I feel for those who are on the fleet of cruise ships just in case they can’t see the sun for the eclipse this afternoon.
Our plan is to try to get ashore and climb the hill behind Ittoqortoormiit to watch the spectacle. We are just outside the zone of totality but it should be impressive nevertheless.
We have just had a massive pasta lunch. Paul points out that we have a lot to thank the Italians for, food just being one of them – good shoes, Riva boats, woodworking machinery, fancy cars and fine art being a few others.
The air temperature here is 8C and the sea is 7.2C. The wind chill is the icing on the cake. We think it will get seriously cold during the eclipse. Let’s see.
While we wait, we have been planning our escape. It looks like the strong winds will ease late on Thursday night. We aim to go then, and head for east Iceland.
It looks unlikely we will be able to round Langanes headland in the north east point of Iceland before the wind turns strongly against us. If that is the case we will head for Raufarhofn, Husavik or Siglufjordur in that order depending on the tightest sailing angle. We will take a rest, re-provision then head for Scotland, or maybe the Faroes if the wind turns bad.
Well the eclipse has just happened. We were in an area of 99.4% coverage but just that .6% of sun had a surprising effect. It grew darker, but only marginally. It was basically slightly dusk-like. The temperature didn’t plummet but dropped slightly from 8 down to 6.5 degrees C.
The dogs did not howl! It was interesting but not dramatic. We watched from the boat because it was too windy to get ashore. Hopefully the wind will ease tomorrow so we can get ashore and stretch our legs.
If anything of note happens tomorrow, I will add it to this blog post, otherwise I will report in when we hopefully safely arrive in Iceland, or even Scotland, or maybe the Faroes, who knows where we will end up!
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