We spent all night and all morning at sea, because our next stop, the little island of Grimsey (Hey! I can pronounce that one!) is located right on the Arctic circle and it takes a while to get there.
So with a free and relaxing morning, we took advantage of some of the features of our nice boat. I enjoyed a workout with a view from the gym (several whales were spouting and some even surfacing in the distance), while sea birds flew around. It does make the indoor walk - which I don’t tend to be a huge fan of- much more enjoyable.
Then I went to one of the lounge areas, on the front of the ship, just to relax. To everyone’s delight, about 6 to 8 humpback whales swam around us and one came close enough to our ship that I could take some (not great) pictures with my iPhone when she waved at us. We all waved back!
When we have a quiet morning, there are lectures offered on topics related to the area. This morning, one of our guides, Marcos, spoke about the geological formation of Iceland, as well as about the fauna. The most interesting thing I learned is that Iceland is right on top of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge- in fact, part of it, and the only part that’s above water. Because of that, it’s extremely unstable and any part of it could just blow up at any time.
We got to Grimsey island at 3:00pm, and started exploring it around 3:45pm. What's nice about this part of the word in the summer is that you can start a hike latish in the afternoon and not worry about when the sun will set - because it won't!
We all had our picture taken the historical arctic circle (more about that later), and then I chose to take the 5 mile hike around the island, while Joe stayed close to town to take pictures of the many - MANY- birds on the island.
First a few words about the island itself: It is tiny and sits on the arctic circle. Yesterday, I said that the town we visited was isolated - I did not know isolated! Grimsey has a town of 70 people, an elementary school, and a church. But no grocery store- people have to take the ferry 29 nautical miles away for even basic shopping. Oddly - there are cars..... there is only one road - it's about 10 miles long and goes around the island.......
Today- with perfect weather and mild temperatures, it looked like heaven!
We went to the other side of the island - about 2 miles- to the actual Arctic circle (it keeps moving, so they move the ball to where it actually is every few years- soon it will be in the ocean….). I tried to help move it…..
The hike was simply amazing - the landscape was breathtaking, the cliffs were just gorgeous and PUFFINS!!!!!! puffins everywhere!!!! not quite close enough to touch, but close enough to take darn good pictures with my little camera (no need for the super-duper lens).
There were thousands of puffins in the water! From the cliffs, they looked like little black dots. It was remarkable. Plus the weather was amazing - mild and bright, with just enough of a sea breeze to not be too hot.
And there were pretty sheep- as if to make the landscape just quainter.
As I said, amazing!!!!! Here are pictures of my hiking group, and of our boat, seen from the hill. you can also see in the distance the entrance of the fjord that we will be exploring tomorrow..
There were other bids too! (I tend to get distracted by PUFFINS!!!!). Lots of arctic terns, which are nesting now -
and were very aggressively defending their nests, dive bombing us at times to make sure we'd stay away (it worked). Also nesting in the cliffs - sea gulls and guillemots.
And this little snow bunting was having a bath in this puddle. Joe took many more pictures of many different birds- will have to wait till we get home to add them……
However, like everywhere in nature, there is also competition and we saw quite of few eggs that had been stolen (maybe by skuas, or eagles), and were not going to make it. No wonder the terns are so defensive of their nests.
Here are a few more pictures of PUFFINS!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment