I'd been trying to catch sight of a boat going up or down the slips near my house for a while now, and reading the harbour news, I thought I'd interpreted my reading to include a scheduled boat up onto the slips. I set my alarm clock and got out there, all set!

Of course, I'd got something wrong, or their schedule changed, but the slips were unchanged. So I took the morning to go for a stroll around the harbour and see what was up. This turned out to be quite rewarding. I finally got to see some icelandic fisherman unloading from a smaller boat. I'd seen one of the monster factory ships unloading, but that was basically just sacks. This was actual classic plastic fish boxes, full of still glistening bloody fish. A dock worker was stacking them up with a forklift while the seamen unloaded, and shortly after I arrived, a buyer (presumably) arrived and looked over a couple of boxes, then had the fork lift driver start loading boxes into his truck, which he then drove off in.

I tried to stay out of their way, I've always appreciated how open the dock is here, there was really nothing stopping me walking right into the middle of things.

I left them to their work, and continued around the dock, checking out the other boats. One of these "other" boats was the private yacht Turmoil. A bit of later online research uncovered that this was a 50 million euro yacht, only a couple of years old. Nice enough I guess, though the vanity that must go into keeping that boat so immaculate must be a bit hard to bear. On the bright side, at least it's here in Reykjavík harbour, not just puttering around in the med or the carribean.

Attention then turned to the massive "public" works project. The concert hall being built on some reclaimed land by the harbour. This was yet another example of backroom dealing and goverment business dealings rather lacking in transparency. Apparently, though I never understand everything, this is now being built by a private contractor, and rented back to the city, for more than the initial building costs. Some dodgy deal that will make some more icelanders a chunk more money. We'll see what they do with it.

Trying to ignore that aspect, it's still a fairly impressive site. They have a metric shitload of workers, absolutely churning as hard and as fast as they can. It's certainly coming along fairly quickly for the size of the place.

While I was here, I had a bit of a look in the water, where it washes up against the edge of the reclaimed portion, and was happily surprised to see both a crab, a starfish, and a couple of small fishies. Plenty of life here still, even right in the harbour.

Back home again, I strolled past the only "secure" portion of the dock, which is often completely open anyway. Today's guest was a British ocean research boat. The "security guard" was busy taking pictures as well.