17
ALMOST TWO WEEKS later, Leifur and Astrid were on Brimfaxi early in the morning preparing for the first whale watching tour. It was for friends and family only, so they could check they were ready for anything before they started for real in two days.
‘Lifejackets.’
‘Check,’ said Astrid.
‘Weatherproof suits.’
‘Check.’
Leifur appreciated her patience with him.
She was going along with it even though they’d done exactly the same checks yesterday and no one had touched anything since.
But she knew he was anxious, and it helped him feel as if he was in control of something by checking the things that could be checked. A lot.
‘First-aid kit.’
‘Check. Weather forecast?’
His head snapped up from the list he was reading before he realised she was trying to move things along. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s okay. Remember today is going to flag up anything we haven’t thought of. But we do know we have everything on that list. ’
The days they’d spent equipping the boat had been a crash course in getting to know each other, and it had gone pretty well. The biggest lesson Leifur had learned was that he was used to being in control and had a hard time letting go of anything to do with the boat.
He sat on the nearest bench and felt his shoulders drop. ‘The weather looks okay. We’re expecting winds of ten knots, which will give us reasonably calm seas. We might run into some rain in about an hour.’
‘That’s good. It’ll give the new gear a good test.’ They had racks of all-in-one waterproofs for guests to borrow.
‘And if there’s anything wrong with it, it’s too late to do anything about it before we start for real in two days.’
‘They’re the best ones you can buy. The same as the ones we wore when we went on the tour with the other company. And it’s still better to find out today than in two or three days’ time.’ Astrid sat next to him and rubbed his thigh soothingly.
Leifur would never have said he was an anxious person, but these past few weeks had been stressful. There was so much more riding on this than whether tourists saw a whale while they were in Iceland. This was his life. If he couldn’t make a success of this, what was he going to do?
‘Hey,’ Astrid said softly. ‘Let’s take a break and get a coffee from Rust.’
‘We have coffee here.’ The galley was fully stocked, ready to serve guests with hot drinks and snacks.
‘No, we’re getting off the boat before you make me count the lifejackets again.’ She pulled his hand until he stood up. ‘Come on, it’ll do you good to have a break so you’re fresh when everyone gets here.’
‘Okay, you win,’ he said, thinking that over the past two weeks he’d also learned that he’d do almost anything for Astrid. She was easy company and, aside from today when his anxiety levels were so high that nothing could touch them, a very soothing presence.
They walked to Rust, one of the restaurants that sat along the harbour side, ordered coffees and sat on a bench overlooking the sea.
‘Feel better?’
‘I’ll feel better when today is over.’
‘Oh, come on.’ She leant into him. ‘Aren’t you excited to show off the boat to everyone?’
‘I’m worried about what my mother will think of the changes.’ He had his mother’s blessing, but it still mattered that she thought he’d done justice to Brimfaxi and his father’s legacy. But talking about it wasn’t helping. ‘Are you looking forward to seeing your parents?’
‘Yes,’ she said emphatically. ‘I haven’t seen them since I’ve been back, and it’s the first time I’ve been home since they moved out of the city. It’s strange not having them around. They’re staying with Gudrun and Olafur tonight. I was going to ask, would you like to come out to dinner with us?’
‘You don’t want to wait and see how today goes? You might be glad to see the back of me.’
‘What do you think is going to happen today, Leifur?’ She sounded impatient. ‘It sounds like you’re expecting a disaster of some sort.’
He shrugged. It felt like impending doom, but he wasn’t sure why.
‘Look.’ Astrid pulled on his arm and he swivelled slightly. ‘All we have to do today is take some people who already like us on a boat ride. You just have to drive your boat out there.’ She jabbed her finger at the sea. ‘And if we don’t find a whale, no one will mind.’
‘They will when we start for real.’
‘Let’s concentrate on today. It’s not about the whales today, okay? It’s about seeing if we can entertain people on the boat without killing them.’
He couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I think we can manage that.’
‘Of course we can.’
‘Thank you.’ He reached for her hand and squeezed it.
‘And thank you for the dinner invitation, but perhaps another time. I’ll have to drop my mother home afterwards, anyway.
’ He already knew that even if things went well today, he wouldn’t be in the mood to charm Astrid’s parents.
He’d be tired and would need to be alone to overthink every aspect of the day in peace.
‘Okay. Another time. Come on then, we’d better get back. I want to get the boiler going so I can make hot drinks to welcome everyone on board.’
They were both on deck ready to greet their guests just as Gudrun and Olafur arrived with Astrid and Gudrun’s parents.
‘Hae, Mamma, Pabbi!’ Astrid called, waving at them with a huge grin on her face.
‘Astrid, you look wonderful,’ said her mother. ‘Look at the colour in your cheeks.’
‘Oh, Mamma,’ Astrid said, hugging her parents. ‘This is Leifur, captain of the Brimfaxi .’
‘And Astrid’s boyfriend,’ Gudrun chipped in.
‘Gudrun!’
‘Oh, don’t mind your sister,’ her mother said. ‘It’s nice to meet you Leifur.’
‘Welcome on board. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.’ He shook their hands and stood aside while Astrid instructed them on what to do next.
‘Well, this is exciting,’ said Jonas, who was the next to arrive with Rachel. Leifur shook hands with Jonas as they both climbed on board.
‘Welcome. Astrid will show you what to do to get ready.’
‘It all looks amazing, Leifur. Congratulations. ’
The praise from Jonas was heartfelt and a salve to Leifur’s nerves. ‘Thank you.’
A few more people arrived who Leifur didn’t know but who were friends or business acquaintances of Jonas.
He relaxed as everyone greeted him with wide smiles, their excitement building into a palpable buzz.
Then he spotted his mother walking along the quay.
She waved a hand once she saw he’d seen her.
‘Oh, Leifur.’ She had tears in her eyes, and for a moment his heart clenched in horror until she smiled and put a hand on his cheek.
‘ Brimfaxi looks wonderful. Her fresh paint makes it look as if she’s left the hard work and had a makeover ready for a new adventure.
The start of her new life. Just like you. ’
Leifur pulled Peta into his arms and buried his face in her shoulder, feeling as if he were five years old again. ‘ Takk , Mamma.’
‘Now,’ she said, swiping under her eyes with her forefingers, ‘are you going to find me some whales?’
‘I hope so.’
With Peta on board, Jonas gave the nod that everyone he was expecting to show up was here, and Leifur went to find Astrid, who was helping people with their suits.
‘We’re ready to go. Help me with the ropes, and then you can start the safety briefing.’
‘Okay.’ She picked up a suit and held it out for his mother. ‘I think this one will be a good fit for you.’
‘Thank you. You’re one of Leifur’s colleagues?’
‘Mamma, this is Astrid,’ said Leifur. ‘We’ll see you soon. We have to get started.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ Astrid said, following Leifur.
‘Call me Peta!’
‘Your mother is lovely.’
‘Thank you. Here is the headset. Come on, you take the ropes off and throw them onto the dock like we practised.’ He could hear himself being curt, but there was no time to have a cosy chat about how nice his mother was. They had work to do.
He climbed into the wheelhouse and started the engines.
He turned to see Astrid waiting for his signal, as they had planned.
He raised his hand, and she unhooked the two ropes that were left, the one at the bow first, followed by the stern.
With just two of them on the boat, the other lines had already been taken off by Leifur once everyone was on board.
As Leifur manoeuvred Brimfaxi towards the harbour entrance, Astrid stood on the bow and started her safety briefing.
The headset that she wore transmitted wirelessly to speakers all over the boat so that wherever a guest was, they could hear her.
He listened, the combination of being on their way, and the soothing sound of Astrid explaining to the guests what to do in the event of someone falling overboard, relaxed him so that when they passed through the yellow buoys that marked the entrance to the harbour, he actually started to enjoy himself.
The plan was to head out into Faxaflói Bay.
Astrid would spend the first part of the trip making refreshments for guests before going onto the deck to look for signs of whale activity.
The hope was that the guests would join her on deck, but if they preferred to stay inside, the view from the new windows was good enough that they wouldn’t miss out if there was something to see.
From his years as a fisherman, Leifur knew the classic signs to look out.
One of them was birds. Seabirds that were gathering together in a particular area were a sign that whales were around.
The whales made circles of bubbles that pushed fish up to the surface so that they could eat them, and the birds could benefit from that too.
Also, the telltale vapour releasing from a whale’s blowhole could be seen from quite a distance.
Leifur had his eyes on the horizon, scanning as he always did, but this time trying to pay attention to spotting blows. He was surprised when Astrid came in with a coffee for him.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘How’s it going down there?’
‘Good. Everyone’s kitted up and heading outside. I’ve left the galley as a help-yourself. Do you think that’s okay?’
‘Sure. It’s only coffee and cake.’
‘That’s what I thought. Any sign of anything yet?’
She leant in front of him to peer out of the window, and he resisted the urge to touch her hair. It was glossy and fell from her shoulder, brushing past him so he caught the scent of something sweet.
‘Nothing yet.’ Though he’d not been concentrating since she came up here.
‘Okay. I’m going to start.’
‘Good luck.’
She grinned at him and pushed the headset on, then took her hair and pulled it into a bun with a twist of her hands. ‘Thanks.’ Then she leant in and kissed his cheek, turning and leaving before he could say anything.
He took a deep breath and then settled in to listen to her commentary.
She began by explaining the signs to look out for, the four Bs: birds and blows, which he already knew about, and bubbles and boats.
The bubbles signalled that a whale was surfacing, and boats because where there were tour boats, you hoped there were whales.
The guests were gathering around the edge of the deck.
‘I can see a blow at two o’clock,’ said Astrid. ‘I will use the clock numbers to direct you, with twelve being the front of the boat and six the back.’
Leifur was impressed by how well Astrid was coming across. She sounded as if she’d done this countless times before. He watched at the spot she’d said and saw the next blow for himself, changing the heading of the boat starboard to head in that direction.
‘There are minkes approaching from five o’clock,’ said Astrid, although he wasn’t sure how she could tell. ‘We have two individuals at twelve o’clock.’
Some of the guests headed up to the bow, phones in their hands, while most of them stayed on the main deck.
‘Minkes are fast. These won’t be with us for long,’ Astrid said. ‘I can see a blow at nine o’clock, about five hundred metres from us.’
Leifur turned the boat slightly in that direction. He hadn’t realised that Astrid’s scouting and relaying what she could see to the guests would help him out too. He thought he’d have to rely on looking for fish on the sonar as a starting point.
‘The whale we have at twelve o’clock is a humpback.
Each humpback whale has distinctive markings on the underside of its tail, and they’re individual, like fingerprints.
There’s a library of known individuals kept by the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, so if you get a good photo of a tail today, they could tell you information about that whale if it’s already known to them. ’
The humpback appeared ahead of them, and as Astrid carried on with her commentary, Leifur received a radio message on an open channel from another tour boat letting him know the location of a group of four humpback whales about two kilometres from their position. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.
‘How’s it going?’ Jonas appeared at the door of the wheelhouse. ‘You guys are doing a great job so far.’
‘And we have whales already,’ said Leifur.
‘And a boat of happy guests. Was that a radio message from another tour boat saying they’d found whales at another location? ’
‘Yes, we have to keep in radio contact with other vessels as part of the code of conduct, but I wasn’t expecting them to share information like that.’
‘I wondered if that might happen. On northern lights tours, we often share information on where the best sightings are, especially if it’s cloudy and hard to find a clear spot. I wasn’t sure they’d do the same on the whale watching. That’s great.’
‘It is,’ Leifur agreed. ‘I thought it’d be more competitive than that.’
‘We all want the same thing. By the time the customers are on the boat, they’ve spent their money with us, and we have to meet their expectations.’
‘And I guess one day we might find the whales and another day someone else might,’ Leifur said.
‘Exactly. It’s bigger than us. If every visitor to Iceland leaves having seen what they came to see, we’re all doing a great job.’