Slow day suddenly becomes slower

Sage slept in this morning until after 9, so I took advantage and slept in too. We woke up, ate breakfast and enjoyed the beautiful weather, the beach and the slide nearby.

We took a stroll along the beach and then stopped at the local café for a hot chocolate and to sit outside and watch the tide creep up onto the beach.

Then we drove back across the fjord to go further east and then back south across the fjord to get to a view of cliffs on the southwest-most corner of the westfjords where there are lots of birds. At the top of the fjord on the way, a red light came on in the car.

We pulled into a spot where a large bulldozer was parked, probably to smooth the road. Otherwise there was nothing around. I joked that it looked like the moon.

Fortunately we had a great signal. This whole island has great coverage. We called Cozy Campers and the mechanic was pretty sure the problem was a timing belt. Our car was the only one in the fleet that hadn’t had the belt replaced because it had looked ok at the time. Steve confirmed he was correct. He had one there in his office just for this car. Unfortunately we were in the middle of nowhere, even by Iceland standards. He had to call us back.

When he called back he had it all set up. He would put the belt on a flight from Reykjavik at 4pm (it was currently 2:30, pretty lucky since this flight only goes three times a week). A mechanic from the nearest town (40 minutes away) would pick up the belt and come to us and could install it on site.

So we hung out, called Grandma Grandpa, Abu and Papi Bob, Steve got work done, and Steve and Sage went and explored the bulldozer (while I pretended not to be aware of such misfit behavior). We were very surprised that someone showed up very quickly to tell Steve and Sage to get out of the bulldozer. Where were they? I guess we know if we ever need someone to help us, we can always get in a piece of equipment.

Once the car was fixed we decided to leave our current plans for tomorrow and drove into Patreksfjörður for dinner and camping.

We had a little trouble finding a restaurant that would take us before closing at 9, but the bakery graciously let us in.

At dinner we learned that there was a volcanic eruption near Reykjavik as they were predicting. Right now it would be a lot of driving to get back there. Our plan is to continue exploring the Westfjords for the next 1-2 weeks and then when we drive back to the ring road make a detour then to see it, if there’s something to go see at that time.

The campsite was right next door, which was great. We quickly got our beds out and went to sleep.