Covid smit á Sólvöllum, þrjú dauðsföll.

Í vetur kom upp kórónuveirusmit á hjúkrunarheimilinu Sólvöllum á Eyrarbakka og létust þrír aldraðir einstaklingar.  Samtals hafa 29 manns dáð af sjúkdómnum á Íslandi.  Erfiðlega hefur gengið að fá bóluefni og eru aðeins um 33.289 búnir að fá bólusetningu.

The fishingboat Halikon has sunk.

The fishing boat Halikon sank near land at Siglufjörður on 13 August 1929. The boat from Eyrarbakki had collided with sea ice in Húnaflói and was damaged.  The crew did not complain.  The boat was bought to Eyrarbakki in 1918, and the owners were Vilbergur Jóhannsson, Helgafell and Jóhann V Daníelsson.

The fishing boat Olga is stranded

On May 15, 1929, the motorboat "Olga" from Eyrarbakki ran aground at Þorlákshöfn. The crew, 2 in number, escaped unharmed, but the boat was destroyed.  This boat was bought from the Westman Islands in 1919. It was Páll Guðmundsson, Sandvík, Torfi Sigurðsson, Einarshöfn, and Ingvar Guðmundsson in Grimsstaðir who owned the boat.

The sailing ship EOS in trouble.

Crews rescued aboard the trawler Mary A. Johnson.

 In January 1920, an unmanned ship drifted in front of the breakwater at Eyrarbakki and broke into pieces.  It was the bark ship "EOS" from Hafnafjörður and the crew had left the ship shortly before.  

 ----The story:

The ship left Hafnarfjörður on January 19 and was intended to sail to Sweden.  The motor ship "Venus" pulled it out of port and released it about two hours later. The bark ship then safely reached Reykjanes. But on the eve of January 21st at 2 o'clock there was so much stormy weather that nothing could be done. They then lost control of the ship and  It seemed at that time that the ship was in great danger. Then the sails began to tear, one by one, and the poles broke.  It turned out that a considerable amount of seawater had entered it, so the sailors tried to pump, but the pumps were out of order, and the most reliable wind pump had broken in the weather, so it was not possible to repair it.  There were more breakdowns in the search, and as no action was being taken to repair all that had broken down in the open sea, the ship set sail when it was taken control of the ship and headed east, because the Westman Islands were now the only harbor that  was able to reach.

 In a publication in the middle of the morning, they saw the Westman Islands in action and the weather began to slow down.  They set up all the sails they could and steered to the island, but in the afternoon it was balmy and they were close to N.V.  of the Westman Islands.  But soon it began to hiss from the southeast and was then blown away.  Towards evening they tried to draw attention to themselves with emergency signals (torches), but no one noticed.  At  8 a southeasterly wind came and they sailed away ‚[on a lens west with land], but soon the weather hardened so much that the sails that were left went into rags and this weather was followed by tide, thunder and lightning.  One lightning strike hit the ship near the captain and two others, but none of them were seriously injured, and can be called remarkable.

 Suddenly it fell into a calm for a while, but then began to hiss from the southwest.  The ship was then held up to the wind.  At  3 During the night a storm came from the south, and drove the ship ashore, and were then given emergency signals in the latter part of the night.  At  At 6 o'clock in the morning, the English bottom trawler Mary A. Johnson (Captain Nielsen) came to their aid and followed them until it was light.  He did not trust himself to tow the ship to port, but offered to go to the Westman Islands and try to reach a rescue squad, but because the ship was so close to land, he saw that there was no time for it and he wanted the crew  leaving "Eos".  Then there was no other plan and he put out a lifeboat for them, (because the lifeboat "Eos" had been damaged), and all the crew of "Eos" got into it.  It was not easy, however, because the sea was great, but the English poured oil into the sea and made every effort to help as best they could.  Some of the crew managed to take some of their clothes with them, while others lost everything they had with them.  This will have been around noon on Thursday and code to the damaged ship was then waiting to be inspected if anything could be done to save it, but at about  4, the ship had reached the breakwater, and the crew was then taken to Reykjavík.  The captain of "Eos" was Davíð Gíslason.  "Eos" was 456 tons in size (net). The owners of h.f. Eos were Jóhannes Reykdal, Guðm. Kr. Guðmundsson, Lárus Fjeldsted and Ásmundur in Hábær.

 Source: Ægir 1920. Austurland 1920. Alþ.bl.1920.  http://brim.123.is/

Eyrarbakki brewery Bakkøl 1927

In 1927, a man named Sigurd Thorarinson attempted to establish a brewery in the village of Eyrarbakki Iceland.  Most of what was needed was supplies, tools and equipment, bottles and labels.  Bad luck was with us, because Sigurd was also a fisherman and unfortunately his boat went missing.  If this had been successful, it would have been the first brewery in Iceland.

  P1910167.JPG