Jan Mayen Island, Iceland, and a taste of Greenland
I've once again been a bit lax in updating the blog, but better late than never. We did manage to land at Jan Mayen Island despite some fairly heavy winds making the Zodiac landing a bit hairy...
Jan Mayen is set up as a meteorological station, but it is run by the Norwegian military. We were greeted by the base commander and given a little tour of the facility. It's actually fairly luxurious considering it's in the middle of nowhere, and it seems that it may still be of military significance. Interestingly it was the only part of Norway that was never captured by the Germans during the war.
After Jan Mayen, we had another day at sea and then docked in Akureyri in Iceland. Akureyri is in the North of Iceland, and we had a full day there. One nine hour bus tour later, we had seen Goddafoss - the waterfall of the Gods, Krafla geothermal power station, the sulphurous steam vents, some nice natural hot springs (which we had an hour to bathe in) and some other sights. Iceland is quite an interesting place - contrary to the name there's not much ice, but it's a volcanic island, and still has active parts, allowing them to generate copious amounts of geothermal energy, and resulting in the steam vents around the place. The town itself is fairly small, but has some cute little quirky buildings - corrugated tin nailed on wooden frames and other odd little places.
After Akureyri we sailed along the North coast of Iceland to Vigur Island, a small privately-owned island that houses a farm and a lot of nesting puffins, as well as "Europe's smallest post office". The farmer and his family have a pretty good business sense - somehow they manage to get a large number of tourists every year to visit their little island. They have about 80,000 nesting puffin each year, and they catch 8,000 a year to supply Iceland's restaurants (as puffin is a local delicacy). It was an interesting few hours on the island, but possibly not exactly what we were after from an Arctic cruise.
From Vigur Island we had another day at sea and today arrived in Greenland and spent the day in Skjoldungen Fjord on the East Coast. Today was the first day it really felt like we were in the Arctic. Greenland is covered in a massive ice sheet, and as a result, the glaciers calve off massive icebergs, so on our way in we sailed past some beautiful specimens. Bizarrely, there are a LOT of midges in Greenland, despite the cold weather. We went for a walk on the tundra which was a lot of fun. There are some beautiful little alpine plants there. All of them are fairly low to the ground (due to the thin layer of soil available to grow in and the permafrost layer underneath the topsoil). In the evening we sailed out the southern part of the Fjord and onwards towards our next stop tomorrow at Prins Christian Sound.
Jan Mayen is set up as a meteorological station, but it is run by the Norwegian military. We were greeted by the base commander and given a little tour of the facility. It's actually fairly luxurious considering it's in the middle of nowhere, and it seems that it may still be of military significance. Interestingly it was the only part of Norway that was never captured by the Germans during the war.
After Jan Mayen, we had another day at sea and then docked in Akureyri in Iceland. Akureyri is in the North of Iceland, and we had a full day there. One nine hour bus tour later, we had seen Goddafoss - the waterfall of the Gods, Krafla geothermal power station, the sulphurous steam vents, some nice natural hot springs (which we had an hour to bathe in) and some other sights. Iceland is quite an interesting place - contrary to the name there's not much ice, but it's a volcanic island, and still has active parts, allowing them to generate copious amounts of geothermal energy, and resulting in the steam vents around the place. The town itself is fairly small, but has some cute little quirky buildings - corrugated tin nailed on wooden frames and other odd little places.
After Akureyri we sailed along the North coast of Iceland to Vigur Island, a small privately-owned island that houses a farm and a lot of nesting puffins, as well as "Europe's smallest post office". The farmer and his family have a pretty good business sense - somehow they manage to get a large number of tourists every year to visit their little island. They have about 80,000 nesting puffin each year, and they catch 8,000 a year to supply Iceland's restaurants (as puffin is a local delicacy). It was an interesting few hours on the island, but possibly not exactly what we were after from an Arctic cruise.
From Vigur Island we had another day at sea and today arrived in Greenland and spent the day in Skjoldungen Fjord on the East Coast. Today was the first day it really felt like we were in the Arctic. Greenland is covered in a massive ice sheet, and as a result, the glaciers calve off massive icebergs, so on our way in we sailed past some beautiful specimens. Bizarrely, there are a LOT of midges in Greenland, despite the cold weather. We went for a walk on the tundra which was a lot of fun. There are some beautiful little alpine plants there. All of them are fairly low to the ground (due to the thin layer of soil available to grow in and the permafrost layer underneath the topsoil). In the evening we sailed out the southern part of the Fjord and onwards towards our next stop tomorrow at Prins Christian Sound.
posted by Ken at 12:36 am
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