Day 5
24 February 2017

Having read most of the Lonely Planet guide to Iceland, map beside me on the table, I'm slowly working my way through the rival Rough Guide, which I prefer. I do this while eating my breakfast. Before Christmas I contacted "Fulglavernd" or Birdlife Iceland, and they suggested concentrating on the north coast, which also has the best coverage of information about birds. There are a series of scarcely populated penisulas and some bird islands. One of these, Drangey, is the scene of a vivid passage from Grettir's Saga.

Outlawed Grettir, lving off sheep on the little island, loses his fire. He spots some glowing embers on the mainland and decideds to swim across the 7.5 km despite the fact that the water temperature seldom goes above 9 degrees. Here I quote the guide:

". . . two young women, finding Grettir lying naked on the ground, numb after his swim . . declare 'He's certainly big enough in the chest but it seems odd how small he is further down."

Which reminds me of the old joke about some grossly well-hung Afro-American stepping out of the cold sea, being gawped at: "What you laughing at? Yours ud be shrivelled up if you'd been in that cold water." Good to know that the last 1000 years haven't changed human character much.

It's been a week of hard labour, and the difficult job of insulating the van. I decided to use rigid foam sheets - celotex - for most of it and expanding foam to fill any gaps. I use the pro type canisters with a replaceable gun, which is a fairly expensive item, but can be left attached to the canister when not in use. However, following my usual practice of reading the instruction after I've found out how it works, I discovered that it's not supposed to be left on for months on end. Carefully unscrewing the can, I found the gun blocked with solid foam. At this point any sensible person would throw it away, grit their teeth and buy a new one. I spent hours taking it apart, soaking it in cellulose thinners and cleaning out all the gunk. I did in the end get it working, but being made of cast alluminium, the threads are fragile and the adjustment knob has got threaded. It's still working, just.

Panel vans are made strong by being built around a skeleton of hollow struts - see picture.

Most people seem either leave them or stick thin foil inuslation over them. I decided to try to fill them, using a combination of rigid foam offcuts and spray foam. Needless to say this takes a long time, and I probably won't notice any difference, but my house building experience taught me to leave no gaps when insulating. I hope it will help with sound insulation.

Today the plywood for the lining will arrive and I will need some good templates to cut the shapes accurately. Fortunately the gale force winds of yesterday have died down and today will be fine though colder.
This is the van this morning: