Days 17 - 18
Sunday, September 01 & Monday, September 02
Two sea days now until we reach Iceland. The seas are a bit rough as we head toward
the North Atlantic, but not bad at all.
It’s also colder now with morning temperatures of 45 degrees and highs
for the day in the low 50’s. We finally
turn on our Kindles and start some reading.
And we attend a few of the lectures in the theater. The first one is a presentation about the
Northern Lights. Evidently this year
there has been a lot of sun spot activity, and we are in the correct season,
and we are in a good location, so seeing the Northern Lights while on the ship
is a good possibility. We will be going
up to the top deck about 11 pm at night in hopes of seeing a display of nature.
A well-versed gentleman by the name of John Maxtone-Graham is on board
and offers presentations about ocean liners in the North Atlantic. We attended a lecture featuring stories from
survivors of the Titanic. It was quite
interesting.
Our next three ports are in Iceland and there is a presenter offering
information about what to see and do while in the ports. These are very well attended so getting to
the theater early, with our Kindles to read while we wait, is a must.
And just before we arrive in Iceland, we cross over the Arctic Circle
and collect another certificate from the ship in recognition of crossing the
Arctic Circle at 8 pm (Latitude: 66
degrees 33.6’ North and Longitude 015 degrees 10.8’ West). The second sea day has had much smoother
seas. The captain successfully diverted
the ship around the storm.
Day 19
Tuesday, September 03
Our first port in Iceland is Akureyri (rhymes with Tipperary), the
capital of North Iceland. The town is the
gateway to the famous "Land of Fire and Ice" - Iceland's dramatic
landscape of volcanic craters, extinct lava lakes and majestic waterfalls. We had fantastic views cruising the fjord
into the port this morning and it looks like the sun will be shining today!
We joined a private tour with six other Cruise Critic roll call members
to take us out to the sites today; very similar to one of the ship’s tours but
without the crowds, and we will have a more flexible schedule and more photo
stops – at about one-third the price! Yea!
Our guide and driver is Audun
Benediktsson, owner of the Taxi 17 company and he was waiting for us as our
group exited the ship,.
The day started with a quick tour of the highlights of Akureyri. We then headed out of town to our first
waterfall.
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| Panarama of the harbor area |
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I like lamp posts!   |
Once out of town we stopped at Godafoss. The name means Falls of the Gods. It recalls
an event about 1,000 AD when Iceland still followed the Norse religion. The Lawmaker Thorgeir Thorkelsson meditated
for 24 hours on what he had learned from missionaries; then decided that
Iceland should become a Christian nation.
On his way home, he decided to underscore his decision by throwing the
statues of the Norse pagan gods into the waterfall. And Iceland converted to Christianity.
And we love waterfalls! It’s
easy to get right next to the falls…no fencing at all.
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| Mailing a post card to our grandson |
Next we drove to Lake Myvatn (pronounced “mee-vat” with almost no sound
to the final “n”),. The translation of
“Myvatn” means “Lake of the Midges.
Fortunately, the midges season has passed and the wind was quite strong
so we were not bothered by any stragglers.
Audon did show us photos of the swarms of flies and we were happy we
didn’t have to experience the midges.
The first stop at the lake was at Skutustadir, where we walked one of
the trails to the pseudo-craters. These
craters were formed by explosions when heat from the volcanoes met up with the
cold water of the lake.
Next was Dimmuborgir (dark castles), where the lava had flowed into,
over and through a marshy area east of Myvatn Lake; the process of some lava
cooling and other, still hot gaseous lava bubbling up, through and past the
cooling lava created oddly shaped formations.
There are walking trails around the formations where Audan, took us and
pointed out numerous troll profiles. The
story is these trolls had partied too long and were turned to stone when the
sun rose. With a stretch of the imagination you could see the trolls’ profile
or image in the lava rock.
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| Do you see the profile of an old lady? |
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| Do you see an eagle? |
Terry is standing with one foot in North America and one foot in Europe!
Iceland is actually on top of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that separates the
tectonic plates of Eurasia and North America. The two plates are still drifting
apart (2cm /year). As we drove along,
Audon would frequently say, “now we’re in North America” and then “now we’re
back in Europe”.
We crossed the Namaskard pass to visit the hot springs and boiling mud
pits of Hverir. It reminded us of
Yellowstone National Park and the “moonscape” was quite a contrast to all the
green landscape we have seen.
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| Boiling mud |
Audon then showed us an underground hot pool right along the North
Atlantic Ridge called Grjotagja... this is really a “natural” hot bath and he shared
stories of his youth when he frequented the pools. It was skinny dipping with
men in one cave pool and women in another—with an underwater tunnel connecting
the pools. Hmmmm!
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| Down in the cave. The blue is the reflection of the water. |
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| The North Atlantic Ridge |
Another waterfall was promised at the next stop. It is called Dettifoss and you wouldn’t think
there was a waterfall around there at all.
Audon said to follow the path and take the trail to the right first to
see the smaller waterfall. So off we
went. Dettifoss is Europe’s most
powerful waterfall. Though only 50 yards
high, well over one million gallons of water per second flow over the edge.
Oh my!
Then we headed down river to the “big falls”.
OH MY!!
After that we drove by the Krafla geothermal power station and Viti,
the crater from the 1724 eruption.
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| Viti Crater |
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| The Viti crater seen from the air |
We stopped by a third waterfall and canyon. Again we park and Audon says just 50 meters
up the road and you will see it. And we
did!
Our final stop for the day was at Myvatn Nature Baths, a mini blue
Lagoon. One just can’t go to Iceland and
not experience the outdoor mineral pools.
We enjoyed soaking in the hot water, but the run from the changing room
to the pool and then out again was really, really cold! The Nature Baths were definitely a don’t miss
experience.
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| SO MUCH FUN!! |
Audan provided us with an
outstanding tour of this beautiful part of Iceland. The scenery was just amazingly beautiful –
snow covered mountains, rolling green hills, waterfalls, and the occasional
farmhouse or group of grazing sheep. And
they call this place Iceland??? The
pictures don’t do justice to the beauty of the places we saw.
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| We LOVE Iceland |
All in all, it was very interesting and one of our favorite days at
port! Tomorrow we sail down another
fjord to a small town called Isafjordur, Iceland.
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| Sailing away |
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