Page 2 of Adrift in Iceland
‘I want to pay for the work the boat needs, but I don’t have the money.’ He had to be honest. Jonas had probably guessed anyway. ‘If you’re willing to loan me what I need to get the work done, you take all the profits and I will work for an hourly rate until that’s paid back. Then afterwards, perhaps we could work on a profit-share arrangement?’ Leifur held his breath. This was his ideal scenario, and he didn’t expect Jonas to go for it. It was just the beginning of the negotiations.
Jonas gave a thoughtful nod and was quiet for a moment. ‘Do you have a quote for the work needed from your friend? How long do you think it would take to pay back the loan?’
Leifur led the way into the galley and took a seat at the small table, gesturing for Jonas to do the same. He reached inside his coat and pulled out the pieces of paper that held the plan for the only future he could contemplate; one that meant he could still work on the sea onBrimfaxi. He’d spent hours crunching the numbers, knowing that if he was making a business proposition of this nature to someone like Jonas, he needed to be prepared. Hopefully, he’d thought of every single thing. He laid the sheaf of paper on the table and spread the sheets out.
‘We can do three tours a day with thirty guests. It is weather permitting, so I have factored that in. This is what Ithink we can charge,’ he said, pointing to the figure and looking at Jonas, who nodded his head in agreement. ‘This is the cost of the work, so I think in three to four months I would pay back the loan. That means if we start sailing in April, even if we can only fill two tours a day to begin with, the loan would be paid back before the end of the season.’
‘We have to factor in extra staff costs and equipment, but even so, I think you’re right.’
‘Extra staff costs?’ Leifur said with a frown.
‘You can’t do everything. We’ll need someone to help with the guests on top of a marine biologist to guide the whale-watching. You can’t sail the boat and point out what they’re looking for at the same time. And you can’t serve coffee while you’re sailing,’ Jonas pointed out.
Leifur was annoyed with himself. He had thought through everything but this. He’d been concentrating so hard on getting to the point whereBrimfaxiwould be an excursion boat, he’d overlooked what running an excursion would look like from the point of view of a guest.
‘I’m sorry. You’re right. And this is your area of expertise.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jonas said. ‘It won’t impact the timeline for paying the loan back by much. We can work on this plan together. Refine it. But at first glance it looks good.’
Leifur looked up in surprise. ‘Really? You think it can work?’
‘I do. Yes, it’s a busy market, and we’ll need to make ourselves stand out with a point of difference. You can leave that for me to think about. But what you have here is a solid business plan. Something I can buy into.’ Jonas had a twinkle in his eye.
‘So we have a deal?’ Leifur said, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.
‘We have a deal,’ Jonas said, standing up and holding his hand out.
Leifur ignored Jonas’s hand and hugged him instead. ‘Thank you. You have saved…’ My life, is what he almost said, but it felt too raw. ‘You have savedBrimfaxi. Thank you.’
‘Believe me, you’re doing me a favour as much as I’m doing one for you. It’s easy to be lazy when things are going well and forget that every business needs to evaluate what it’s doing every so often. Make sure it’s staying relevant. This is just what we need. A new challenge, a new adventure.’
Even if Jonas was just saying that to make him feel better, Leifur didn’t care. He felt as if he could breathe again. The future was there again, looking different from how he’d expected, but it was there. Replacing the void, the unknown and easing the sense of failure he’d felt for the past few months.
Leifur rummaged in one of the galley cupboards and pulled out a full bottle of rum and two plastic tumblers. ‘We should have a toast.’
‘Ah, a sailor through and through,’ Jonas laughed, as Leifur poured a small amount into each cup.
‘Skál!’
‘Skál! Welcome to Iceland Adventures.’
2
AT AROUND THE same time, Astrid Jonsdóttir was sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of a different harbour, in Tromsø, Norway. If it wasn’t that she had just emerged from a ridiculously hot sauna, she might have been feeling chilly, wearing only her swimming costume and woolly bobble hat, but she was relishing the sensation of the cold air biting at her skin, and biding her time until the moment she would plunge into the freezing water in front of her.
It had been a strange day. After four years, her contract at the Atlantic Marine Mammal Council had ended. If she were honest with herself, she’d been burying her head in the sand, hoping that someone would simply decide they couldn’t live without her and extend her contract for another four years. But that hadn’t happened. It was part of their ethos, an attempt to offer opportunities to young scientists and keep things fresh. Of course, Astrid knew that. She had benefitted from this herself, so she shouldn’t be annoyed by it. But she was devastated that she was going to have to leave Norway. Four years had been enough time for her to fall in love with the place. It wasn’t so very different from her homeland of Iceland, but coming to Tromsø had been a milestone in her career and, on some level, she felt like a failure having toreturn to Reykjavik.
Astrid lowered herself off the dock and into the water, managing to keep her head out and her hat dry. Although it never failed to make her gasp, it put a big smile on her face, and suddenly the fact that today was the end of everything as she knew it didn’t seem so bad. She swam to the steps that led back up onto the dock where the wood-fired sauna floated in the harbour, decorated with fairy lights to stave off the late afternoon darkness of the late Arctic winter, hauled herself out of the water and hurried back into the welcoming heat of the sauna.
‘Hey, Astrid. Do you want me to come to the airport with you?’ Sofie was a colleague and had become one of her closest friends. She still had two years to go on her contract and was sad to be losing Astrid back to Iceland.
‘No, thanks. It’s better if we don’t have to say goodbye at the airport.’
‘True. If you’re sure. Or I could make Aksel go with you?’
Aksel was Sofie’s on-again/off-again boyfriend. A great Norwegian Viking of a man who would make easy work of carrying all her luggage, but Astrid preferred to say her goodbyes before the very last moment, even to Aksel.
Astrid shook her head and moved up to the top bench in the sauna, where it was hotter. ‘No, I’ll be fine.’
