7pm wake up. Breakfast downstairs (porridge juice fruit) 9am pick up for tour, drive around the city picking up others. Only a small group - 16 people. Our first stop was Pingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park - this is where the tetonic plates of Europe and America are visible and you can stand with one foot in each continent! Absolutely stunning landscape and I will let the photos do the talking. Of course I did manage to shimmy into a crevice and can now say I was in two continents at the same time! This is also where the largest freshwater lake in Europe is - Thingvallavatn Lake. It is 83 square kms and 114 m deep. You can also dive here along the split between the 2 continents. Our next stop was in the Geyser Hot ... read more

Ordered in breakfast again today, as I needed to be ready to leave for my Sudureyri Food Trail tour this morning at 8:15am. At 6:30 this morning the ship docked in Ísafjödur so that tends to be your wake up call - if you do manage to sleep through this then usually Skulk will be on the loudspeaker around 7am to announce we have docked and to get everyone up and moving. Ísafjödur Is the largest town in the Westfjords peninsula, with some 2,600 inhabitants. The old town has wooden houses with corrugated tin roofs, built by fishing merchants in the 18th and 19th centuries. The growth of the town was triggered by salt fish production and ever since then the fishing industry has been vital for the community. The town is surrounded by rugged and ... read more

This morning we were still at sea in our way to Grímsey Island so I went to La Terrazza for the buffet breakfast. After breakfast I headed to the mud room to collect my boots as they needed to be returned this morning. This means we will no longer have any wet landings. We arrived at Grímsey Island at 11:30am. Grímsey is the northernmost inhabited Icelandic territory. It is a tiny, charming island which is approximately 5km in size. Grímsey is a popular destination as the Arctic Circle crosses through it, so today we have sailed from the Arctic Circle and crossed the line but will have the opportunity to then walk back over the Arctic Circle on this island! After a light lunch on board (trying to cut down!) we were scheduled to head ashore ... read more

A day at sea means - no wake up call and nowhere to be at any particular time. Oh, except if you want breakfast the last sitting is 10am, so I made sure I got up in time for that. We also put our clocks back one hour so that gave us even more time to sleep. I met up with David and some of his friends for breakfast so it was a leisurely time. After breakfast I headed to Deck 9 to walk and listen to my podcasts. I was probably up there walking for almost an hour and half. When I first started I was the only crazy out in the windy cold weather but over the time I was joined by others. On the way back to my cabin I had a bowl ... read more

Around 7:30 this morning the Silver Cloud anchored off Smeerenburg (which means blubber town). This landing spot is a know walrus haul out so we were hoping to see them today, however when Skulk announced our arrival he also advised that the Walruses were not there. I was scheduled for a 9:30 zodiac landing so decided to have a quick breakfast beforehand in the La Terrazzo restaurant. Smeerenburg is situated on the island of Armsterdamøya and is surrounded by fjords, tall glacier fronts and steep, rugged mountains. Even though there were no Walruses, which was disappointing, it was still nice to come ashore and walk around for a while. As always, we needed to stay with our group and we have a guide and bear guards with us. Vik was our guide and she told us ... read more