The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.2005, Qupperneq 19

Vol. 59 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
105
Land in Sight
Saturday greeted us with the same calm
wind and mist. There was no land in sight.
Now the lack of food was bothering us
badly. We had a few biscuits, but nobody
had tobacco. So our condition was not too
good at that time. We often thought of
home. We can't deny that we sometimes
wished that we had never gotten ourselves
into this adventure. But we kept those
thoughts to ourselves and never mentioned
them.
On Saturday afternoon we finally saw
land. That was the moment we had all been
waiting for and the joy was enormous.
Hussein was so happy when the land came
in sight throught the mist, that he ran to
Gudjon, hugged, kissed and blessed him on
and on. He felt as his prayers had been
answered. Allah's power was great. Finally
he had hope that they would survive this.
Now we tried to figure out which land
we saw ahead, Italy or Sicily. An Italian
cargo-ship passed us. We called them, but
they kept on going without answering.
Shortly afterwards we spotted a yacht and
signaled them to contact us. On the yacht
were two Frenchmen. They informed us
that we were located 8 sea miles south of
Cape Spartivento on the south coast of
Italy.
We were very glad to hear that.
Amazingly, we had kept the right course
the whole time and were exactly on the
right way to Messina on Sicily. We took
out the roadmap and now we could easily
figure out where to go.
The lack of food and tobacco was still
bothering us a lot. But the excitement of
getting to Messina gave us new energy.
Around 2:00 hrs on Sunday morning
we sailed into the harbour in Messina. We
called to shore and asked for a pilot, but
that wasn't possible unless we could identi-
fy the lighthouse. We told the pilots that
the name of the lighthouse was not printed
on our chart, and after a moment they
accepted to come early in the morning. At
10.00 hrs on Sunday morning we finally
landed. Then we had been without food
and tobacco for two days and were almost
out of oil. That surely was a close shave.
www.nbardal.mb.ca