Friday at UNAK and Akureyri harbour

On the first day of their northern fieldtrip, the GRÓ-FTP fellows were welcomed into the Faculty of Natural Resource Sciences at the University of Akureyri. Hreiður Þór Valtýsson, head of faculty, gave an overview of Iceland´s fishing history from settlement times onwards, after which the fellows were taken on a guided tour of the university and its facilities. In the afternoon there was an opportunity to visit a new, high-tech fishing trawler operating out of Akureyri harbour. The Harðbakur was not currently in operation due to the merging of allocated quotas giving the opportunity for the ship´s engineer Þorður Bjorgvinsson to give the fellows a guided tour of the ship and its modern facilities. Harðbakur is a 30-metre trawler built in 2019 and fellows were amazed to hear the catch figures and the sheer number of fish which could be processed at sea in one day.