Day 9–Leaving Reykjavik, and When an Iceberg is Really an Island

We woke up at a semi-predictable 9 AM to a strange sight. Sunshine. Still plenty of clouds, mind you, but real actual sunshine. Hmmm, things are looking up (famous last words). We were now anxiously waiting to leave, and I started listening into the scanner at around 12:20, 10 minutes before the all aboard. The captain was keeping track of the count of passengers still out, including a couple of tours. And if we didn’t get everyone on board on time, tomorrow’s arrival would be affected, as we’d have to wait for another ship. Said ship wanted to leave early anyway, without a pilot. Said ship was Italian. Reminders of the Concordia. Everyone got on board on time, and the other ship actually did push off at the same time, but since they were further out and we had a tricky turn to make, they were well ahead of us.

Now our side of the ship had the scenery, and I took a ton of shots. This looks like some fantastic hiking here, assuming you can see anything. Oh, and except the steepness.

View from the balcony  - day 9

Across the bay

It’s purdy

Remote village

The seas were rolling again, but as we sailed on the sky opened up, and the temperature rose to 68F. Amazing to be in Iceland sitting on the balcony comfortably in my t-shirt. I spotted the iceberg from yesterday, except we were going to pass closer to it. About a half an hour later I poked my head out and we were alongside it, albeit by some miles. A look through the binoculars revealed it was an island, not a berg. Oops. But it was of such a bizarre shape just rising out of the water.

Eldey Island

A quick search of Google Earth showed it is Eldey Island, home to enormous amounts of birds. Indeed, if you look carefully, you can see many birds flying, and a closer look at the original shows the entire top covered in white spots which are likely birds, also. The structure at top left is almost certainly a lighthouse, with the roof and just a touch of the remaining structure visible. According to wikipedia, there are two webcams on this rock, I’ll have to check those out some time.

So that was the sights for the day. We were in the bar at 11 PM, and the sun had just set. Weird.