Strongman at Centre of the Earth

It’s official. Captain Greybeard is strong enough to be an Icelandic fisherman, and he proved it by lifting a 54 kg stone on the beach at Djupalonssandur. OK, so there were two heavier stones which would have defeated me if I had tried to raise them, but at least I’m a half-carrier and not a weakling, which would have been my status had I managed only the lightest 23 kg stone.
The beach is almost at the western tip of the Snaefellsnes peninsula, and its black lava shingle and sand is littered with the rusting remains of a Grimsby trawler, the Epine, which foundered in 1948. Only five of the crew were rescued, and the wreckage remains as a memorial to the 14 who perished.
The visit to the beach (I’m not going to try to spell it again) was part of a four-and-a-half-hour coach trip from Grundarfjordur, where the Queen Victoria is at anchor for the day.
We also visited one of the few beaches in Iceland with golden sand, and got close enough to smell the kittiwakes feeding their chicks on the cliffs at Arnarstapi – where we were also dive-bombed by angry Arctic terns.
Throughout the afternoon, we skirted the Snaefellsjokull glacier, from which Jules Verne’s Professor Lidenbrock began his adventures in Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
There will be more adventures tomorrow when we reach Akureyri, on the north coast of Iceland. In the meantime, it’s Rat Pack night in the Commodore Club, ’80s night in the Hemispheres disco, and Cheryl Sinclair is performing in the Royal Court theatre.
Am I strong enough to cope?