My wife and I have often returned from fishing trips empty-handed, but I believe a fishing trip to Veiðivötn that we took at the end of July breaks all records in misfortunes. Perhaps we should have taken the clumsiness at the beginning of the preparation for the trip as a harbinger of what was to come and canceled. We did not do that, and therefore what happened, happened. The clumsiness referred to here is that when I was putting fuel in our diesel beast before the trip, I put gasoline in it instead of diesel oil. The workshop at B and L was nice enough to clean out the system with no notice, so despite the clumsiness, we were able to take the trip.
We arrived at the fishing grounds just after noon on Thursday, and we were very much looking forward to starting fishing. We were well received, and we received detailed information about the area from Ragnar the game warden, since we have never fished there before. The weather in Veiðivötn was exceptionally good, so rarely has anything like it been known. We decided to fish in Breiðavatn until dinner and then go to Stóra-Hraunvatn to finish the shift there. We fished for over three hours in Breiðavatn, where little happened. I did actually hook a decent fish, but it got away with the fly when the knot gave way.
Around eight o’clock, we drove towards the Hraunvötn lakes, and now things started to happen. On the way, the automatic transmission on our beloved Land Rover broke down, and the car overheated. We saw that the car was missing water, so we added to it, and when the engine had cooled down, we set off again. On the next hill, the car was again dangerously hot. There we waited for an hour for the engine to cool down and used the time to walk down to the stream between Stóra- and Litla Fossvatn and fetch water in bottles to put in the car. Eventually, we made it down to a shack, but the hour had become so late that nothing could be done but to go to bed. Solutions to the problem had to wait until morning.
On Friday morning, it turned out that a rock had probably punctured the radiator. The leak was so severe that it was not justifiable to try and drive the car to civilization. There were two options. To have the car picked up or to try to stop the leak somehow. The latter option was chosen, and with the invaluable assistance of Ragnar and Hermann, the game wardens in Veiðivötn, the radiator was ripped out of the car, and about four pipes were blocked off. Once the radiator was back in the car, we could technically have continued fishing, but it must be admitted that these car troubles had ripped the desire to fish out of one. Around three o'clock, we set off for town.
After driving about thirty kilometers, the automatic transmission stopped working again, but this time the car did not overheat. When we looked under the hood of the car, it was obvious what had happened. A hose that carries the transmission fluid to the cooling element had come loose, and the fluid sprayed all over the engine. Now a savior in town was called, who rented a car trailer and dashed for us. There we sat in the sun and heat for three and a half hours until the savior appeared. The car was tossed onto the trailer and driven to town. Just to crown our troubles, the police stopped us in Garðabær to check if we had everything in order. It turned out to be so, so they allowed us to complete our journey. Goodness gracious, we were relieved when we finally got home. We should have taken the fuel blunder at the beginning as a harbinger.
