Is that blue sky – Not

---

Friday

Today we woke to the typical weather we have experienced. Gray muck. All the locals keep saying it is usually warmer and more sunny. Oh well. Today we had our first bus trip and it was wonderful. We started off at the hot springs/ mud flats. This reminded us so much of what we saw in Chile. On the way there we crossed from the European plate back onto the North American plate and saw one of the places where the 2 plate separate. From there we drove to the castle lava fields. These were created when one of the volcanic faults erupted and the lava pooled into a large lake. It started cooling and then the dam holding the lava back broke and it drained. We climbed thru these lava towers and holes that were created.

Our next stop was to the “false” craters. These were created when hot lava hit water and caused the lava to turn to pumas and explode and fall back into a pile. When these are formed, they usually erode quickly but in this field they haven’t. We walked thru the field.

Our final stop was the Godafoss waterfalls. Wow they were beautiful and loud. And the sun peaked out for a bit. We then took the bus back to the ship where we ate and then I went up to the observation lounge to watch for whales. We saw several of them and I actually got a picture of the tail on one.

Tonight is another sit-down dinner. It seems they have the sit down dinner when we only have one stop in a day.

Lots of pictures today so make sure you scroll down a lot

---

Photos

DSCF7030
false crater

DSCF7012
Shelly in a lava cave

DSCF7007
Claire in a lava hole

DSCF6999
lava field

DSCF6981
the fault line splitting between the North American and European plates

DSCF6964
mud flats

DSCF6958
more mud flats

tail_good
whale tail

DSCF7109
The falls.

DSCF7107
Claire and Shelly at the falls

DSCF7097
All the smurfs at the falls