11. Sandeyri

At Sandeyri there was a substantial farm for a long time. There were 26 people living there in 1703, and in 1801 there were 19, living on three farms. At Sandeyri the so-called "Sandeyri fight" took place on October 14, 1615, when the Spaniards were hunted down and killed. They had already landed a few whales there and had formed the beginnings of a whaling station. Jón Gudmundsson the learned took up the defense of the Spaniards who were killed at Ædey and Sandeyri in the autumn of 1615. He had met the Spaniards, who were actually both Spanish and French Basques, at Trékyllisvík on the Strandir coast, and spoke well of them. He put out the book "True Narratives of the Spanish Sailors and the Fight There" where he expresses his opposition to the actions of sheriff Ari at Ögur and his men. This earned Jón the lifelong enmity of the authorities, and his life became difficult from that point on.

In the years around 1930 Tómas Sigurdsson and Elísabet Kolbeinsdóttir had a large farm at Sandeyri, from where fishermen had set out for many years, often in more than one boat. There was a concrete house built at Sandeyri in 1908 which is standing today (2003). In recent years it has been used as a rescue shelter. The Sandeyri house has two stories, and has wooden panelling inside. A small hydrogenerator was set up there by the Ormsson brothers in 1929. There was a fine chandelier and an electric stove, although sometimes it couldn't be used if there wasn't enough water running to power the generator. Tómas moved from Sandeyri in 1943; the final resident there was Jóhann Kristjánsson. He left in 1952.

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