Most of the guys travelled over on Tuesday 8th May flying from Glasgow. The baggage was no hassle as the organisers had arranged for a total of 40 kilos person with Icelandair.
We arrived in Keflavik to brilliant sunshine and the good weather was to
continue for the rest of the trip. The first day and night was spent at the local airport guesthouse - the Alex chilling at the digs and having a wander round the port. Lots of gossip was exchanged and as Puch joined the Scots squad you'll know there was never a quiet moment!
The Alex is handy for late arrivals or early morning departures and has a minibus for pick-ups and drop offs at the airport - www.alex.is for details. Puch and Billy managed to find an Irish bar in the town of Klaksvik!
Like most of the trip the Wednesday started at 5 am with a trip to the airport to pick up the hire car.
When we saw the size of the car and the amount of tackle and luggage the task of packing seemed daunting until Derek produced his inflatable roof rack, an amazing bit of kit.
From Keflavik it was an easy one and a half hour drive over to Þorlákshöfn to meet the ferry where Derek had organised the tickets in advance using a rover deal for the six of us and the car - www.eimskip.com
There is also a conecting bus service from Reykjavik to the ferry terminal.
The sailing took about 2 hours in good conditions and the islands were
visable from about half way across.
The harbour entrance is impressive with the new lava flow from the 1973 eruption clearly visable at on the north side.
A few of the Scottish ferry skippers would have problems trying to park their vessels at this port given the dog leg half way along the entrance!
A short trip up the hill from the harbour brought us to our guesthouse, the Sunnuholl situated ideally behind the main Festival hotel and handy for the harbour and the pubs. We arrived to find the familiar red of the Welsh jackets scattered over tackle boxes on the outside decking as Rod and his mates had arrived the day before us. The accomodation was basic but ideal for anglers with a self catering kitchen and plenty of showers, some of which worked!
A scouting mission around the town located the essential pubs and pizza haunts. Beer worked out around £5 for a half litre and pizzas and club sandwiches around £10 a main course at the nearby hotel was around £20.
The rest of the day was spent settling in with a few beers and sorting gear for the practice day on the Thursday. The rest of the Inverness contingent arrived via London and arrangements were made for the trip out the next day.
An early start on Thursday saw the 9 of the Scots and Puch heading out to sea for a practice run on the Frú Magnhildur a 15 metre commercial netter skippered by Johannes (Joni) Sigurdsson which had been arranged for us by EFSA Iceland chairman, Skarphéðinn Ásbjörnsson.
The choice of boat was a good one not only because Joni was an excellent knowledgable skipper but at around £30 a head the costs were around half that being paid by anglers who booked on to a large vessel which does whale watching trips. Joni can be contacted on +354-4813307 or email
Robbie had managed to book a place out with a group of Russians on another boat.
As cats and ling were to be the awarded highest points during the competition most of us targeted them during the day with normal baited spoon gear and while these two species were scarce several were 
landed.
Lots of haddock were located using our usual Scottish traces and booms and coalies and cod proved that they were going to be a pain at times during the competition as they jumped on all sorts of gear and were very difficult to avoid. Tusk also showed in good numbers on the ling gear. The depths fished were generally between 40 and 80 metres.
The highlight of the day was near the end when Joni notice gannets and Orcas working close inshore. The killer whales were working in a group herding feed fish by slapping their 
tails on the surface of the water as we approached and it was an amazing sight as most of us had never seen them working like this before. I did try and get photographs but every time I shot a picture they would dissappear under the surface to feed. The skipper assured us that larger fish would be feeding on the scraps under the whales and the birds so lures were worked from the bottom to mid-water.
The skipper proved correct and Dougie and Derek both had good saithe with Dougie's weighing an excellent 9 kg.
All to soon the day came to an end and after filletting some haddies we made our way back to port where after a few beers Derek cooked up an excellent meal for those in our digs including some appreciative hikers.
The first day of the Festival saw the anglers assemble on their boats at 6 am, yet another early start!
I was draw on one half of the Binni i Gror with two Icelandic anglers, Mark Done from Wales and England's Gary Galbraith. The boat was a 10 metre long liner which although wet when steaming had an excellent turn of speed and full use of this was made to steam towards the mainland to the north of the Westman Islands.
The bait was good quality and the only problem was getting it defrosted in time for the seven o'clock start. A drop with the flutter spoons found coalies and these were quickly cut up for bait along with a solitary whiting. The fishing in 80 metres of water was hard work and it was difficult to avoid the nuisnce cod and coalies. Just when you thought you were safely through the coalies the cod would jump on as the baits hit the bottom!
The boat was closely contested between myself and the two other UK anglers with tusk forming the major part of my catch, including one double shot, together with a sprinkling of haddock. The whiting seemed to be the most productive bait and this also produced a catfish for me on the baited spoons. Mark had the only other cat on the boat when we swung onto a lava mount and no ling were landed. At the end of the day I had 11 counting brosme, 5 haddock and the catfish to win the boat from Mark in second place and Gary.
After seven hours of almost constant winding up and down my body was aching as we landed at the pier to find that it had been a good day for the Scots with boat wins for Derek, Billy, Alastair and Dougie.
At the team meeting later that evening tactics were discussed for the next day as the anglers swapped information about the type of fishing on their boats that day with those who were drawn on the same boat on the Saturday.
The A team decided that we would go for a maximum five boat wins the next day.
After speaking to Derek who was on my boat the day before I decided that I would target haddock and hope that the other species would find their way onto my hooks as a by-catch. My boat for the day was the Glófaxi ll a wooden 12 metre vessel which was probably the oldest in the fleet.
The wind was fairly strong from the east and this kept us in the relatively shallow water on the south west side of the main island, only 50 metres! The first couple of drifts were a disaster given the speed over the ground with tangles all over the boat. The skipper decided to keep the boat underway all day and this did help keep the anglers apart for the rest of the day. Opposition on the boat was provided by a Dane and Billy Cann and Dave Polhill from England.
The haddock gear didn't produce many haddies, seven in total but fortunately the brosme didn't realise that I was targeting haddies and I finished with 17 of them most of which were around the 3 to 4 kg mark. This was good enough for a maximum 100% at the end of the day.
I was lucky that Dan was fishing on the other half of the boat as he humped the boat with a catch which included 3 out of the 4 catfish which were landed!! Again no ling were taken on the boat and cod and coalies kept everyone fishing hard.
On return to the harbour it was obvious that it had been another good day for the Scots with Dougie and Billy joining me with two boat wins and we'd worked out that Dougie was likely to be sitting in first place.
The A team missed out on our target of a maximum 500 by on one and a half points!
All suited and booted we made our way by minibus to the top of the hill above the town for the presentation and after an excellent buffet meal it was confirmed that Dougie had indeed won the event, a brilliant result.
The A team took first place in the International Team event well ahead of England B in second place.
Dan won the seniors competition and Alastair and Robbie teamed up with Norway's Gier and Nigel to win the teams of four. Derek and myself rounded off an excellent competiton for the Scots by taking the pairs event.
Around midnight the anglers made their way back down to the town where the sensible ones headed for their beds while the rest of us hit the pub for a session which ended in daylight at around 6 in the morning.
The icing on the cake. Dragging ourselves out of bed at around 11 we made our way down to the harbour to meet Joni who was due to return with a party of the Russians who had been out on the early shift. Fortunately they were later back than anticipated and we relaxed on the pier, it has to be said that I don't think that the six of us who'd arranged to go out really looking forward to the trip.
The first couple of hours were fairly uneventful with only a few small fish coming aboard and spirits were definately starting to flag as we reach the stage when the tide was due to change.
The day then took a turn for the better as Billy took the first of many large cod on a shad and for the next two hours rods were bent all round the boat as 10 kg cod and tusk to 7 kg were brought to the boat on lures and whole fish baits. Donnie manged a couple of good doubles on the pirk and flyer.
There are plenty of photos of the day in the gallery section. Our final day's fishing showed us a bit of what Iceland is capable of producing and I suspect many of us will return.
The final day saw us retracing our steps back to the Alex and to the cafes, bars and restaurants of Keflavik.
The Festival is one of the best competitions I've attended and the non-competition days fishing were excellent. Thanks have to go to EFSA Iceland for the event and Derek who did most of the organising of the trip. And a final thanks to all the bonkers locals in the pubs!!!