Voyage of the Vikings Redux - Isafjordur, Iceland

Cruise Day 12

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Today we are in Isafjordur, Iceland which is in the remote northwest corner of Iceland and located on the Peninsula of Westfjords and has the distinction of being the coldest place in Iceland at sea level.  It has a tundra climate although it has warmed in recent years.  It is in a beautiful area (it’s hard to find an area in Iceland that’s not beautiful).  Here is a link to our visit in 2016.

We traveled from the Prince Christian Sound to Isafjordur, Iceland (red marker in the upper right corner).

The Westfjords Peninsula.  Isafjordur is the biggest town on the peninsula.

We are lucky to be able to dock today as there is also the Viking Star, a Viking cruise ship, in port and the dock is only able to accommodate one ship, but they are in the process of extending it and although the expansion is not done, they were able to work around that, and find us a place to dock.  This is a town of only 2,600 which means that even though neither ship is what you would call large, there will be more cruise ship passengers than locals in town today.  The weather was cold and overcast with temperatures in the lows 50’s.

The main part of Isafjordur is to the left.

We were lucky to be able to dock as the extended pier is still under construction.

This is our second visit to Isafjordur and we had much nicer weather during our first visit, but that seems to be the case everywhere we’ve visited so far.  We were very lucky on our first Voyage of the Viking cruise.

We had a leisurely morning and because we had a midday excursion, we ate a small, early lunch in the Neptune Lounge.  We got off the ship just before 12:30 and took the long walk past both ships to get to the meeting area for our excursion.  It continues to amaze me the difference in getting on and off the ship on this cruise compared to our Grand Africa Cruise.  On the African cruise, almost every country required visas and / or extensive immigration procedures with delays and customs checks before and when we got off the ship.  On this cruise so far, we get off and proceed to whatever activity we have planned with no customs check at all.

Today we are on a ship excursion called “Off the Beaten Track: Cruise to Vigur Bird Island”.  As the name implies, we are taking a boat on the tour and after gathering with our group, we made the short walk to the boat.  We were surprised to find there would be 48 people on this tour, but the boat was big enough to accommodate everyone.

We gathered for our trip to Vigur Island, it was a cold and cloudy day. You can see the two cruise ships in the background.

We sailed out of the small Skutulsfjord Fjord and out into the much larger and main Isafjaroardjup Fjord and headed off to Vigur Island.  Vigur Island is a private island with only five full time inhabitants who are a farmer and his family.  The family has farmed this island for six generations.  Although it’s a small island, it is the second largest in the Isafjaroardjup.

It took us about 30 minutes to get from Isafjordur on the left to Vigur Island.

It took about 30 minutes to get from Isafjordur to the island and it was a very scenic, but quite chilly trip.  Val and I opted to sit outside on the top deck for the best views, but we did pay the price for that.  The boat crew did provide lap blankets which helped keep us warm, and we were warmly dressed so we were fine, but it was cold.

We sail away from the dock in Isafjordur.

Our ship, the Zuiderdam, on the left and the Viking Star.

We have just left Skutulsfjord and enter the much larger Isafjaroardjup.

The small settlement on Vigur Island.

We arrived on the island and immediately saw there were birds everywhere.  We were divided up into several groups and each group was assigned a guide.  Our guide began by telling us some of the history of the island and what they do know.  It is called a farm island, but their only crop is the eider down collected from the Eider ducks.  The down is collected from the nests, after the eggs have hatched so the birds are disturbed as little as possible. The processing of the down is very labor intensive and only about 60 kilos a year is produced, but this is quite a bit as the down is very light and is also very expensive.  This is all done by eleven people.

The boat heads back to Isafjordur with a group that was here before us.

 

 

This is a Black Guillemot, we saw many of them in the area of the settlement both on the shore and in the water.

This is the unprocessed eider down from the nests of the Eider Ducks on the island.  This is the main commodity produced on the island.

This is a nest of the Eider Ducks.  The nest is real, but the egg is not.

After that, we were led on a tour of the island, and walked past the only surviving windmill in Iceland.  As we walked along Val happily spotted some puffins.  We didn’t see any on our first trip, so she was very excited to see them now.  They are very interesting and colorful birds, and we took quite a few pictures.

The only windmill left in Iceland.

 

Puffins

We proceeded on into the nesting area of the Eider Ducks and we saw many of them on their nests.  We also saw numerous Arctic Terns flying around, but I don't know whether they nested in the same area or not.  When we got off the boat, we were given long sticks which we were told to hold over our heads when we were near the terns and sure enough, as soon as we entered the nesting area, they started dive bombing us.  The guide told us that they are protecting their nests from predators, but as long as we kept the sticks above our heads, we would be fine.

They really do come right at you, which is a little scary, but even though they are not huge birds, they are big enough to do some damage.  The guide told us they would always go for the highest thing and sure enough, as long we kept the sticks above our heads, they came no closer than that.

Everyone had their sticks held high as they walked among the flying and diving Arctic Terns.

We finished our walk through the nesting area and were brought back to the housing area where there was a small café where we were served a snack.  After we had our snack, we were free to wander around on our own, but told not to go back into the nesting area as they had been disturbed enough and should be left alone.

An Arctic Tern

Our snack.

Val and I walked around for a while and Val got some more pictures of puffins until it was time to return to the dock and wait for our ride back to Isafjordur.  

The boat returns to pick us up.

Val and I once again chose to be outside on the top deck, but that didn’t turn out to be the wisest choice as it was very cold.  The day had become even more overcast, and we were now sailing into the wind, so it was extremely cold and the 30 minute trip seemed to take forever.  Despite the cold boat trips, Val and I really enjoyed this tour, it was well worth doing.

One last look at Vigur Island, we really enjoyed our visit.

Skutulsfjord Fjord and Isafjordur ahead.

It was late afternoon when we returned, but the ship wasn’t leaving until late, so we decided to walk into town.  When we visited before there had been a lot of interesting shops and a lot of activity, but it seemed like a lot was closed and it was pretty dead.  It was also a longer walk than we remembered so after looking in a few shops, we headed back to the ship.

By the time we got back it was pretty dead in town.

Back at the dock, we saw that the Viking ship was getting ready to leave so maybe that was why the town was so quiet.  Val and I had done a lot of walking today and we were very tired so once back on the ship, we just relaxed until dinner.  It was an early night for us as the casino was closed and the Rolling Stone Lounge was quiet for the night, but that was fine with us as neither of us had slept very well the last couple of nights due to the time changes.  Tomorrow will be a sea day as we travel to our next port of Akureyri, Iceland.