Post: Leaving Iceland by sea: On the way to Greenland

We’re in a cabin, swaying somewhat. This is a very new ship, and has “wings,” to stabilize the motion. It’s beautiful, and only about 1/3 full of passengers.

We boarded in the late afternoon, so had all day to sightsee with the tour. It poured all day.

We started at a Viking museum near the airport. The museum is the home of an replica Viking ship that sailed from Iceland to North America in the 1990s. The ship was build in the Vestman Islands, and the crew was also from there.

A fun new addition to the museum is a VR experience. You throw rocks and spears in a cartoon version of a battle from medieval times. Then you return the special spear to the chieftain on a white steed. He doesn’t make eye contact. The steed did, though.

Watching other people do the VR is also interesting. Here’s Mark right after he said, “Darn. I dropped my shield.” Just like a real Viking.

We had a rainy walk trough a geothermal site in the style of Mammoth hot springs. The bus driver put a nice spin on the sulfur smell:

“You just have a bad association with the smell. When I smell it, I associate it with bathing, and swimming and clean.”

I tried to think of a positive association, like Easter eggs. Maybe it helped a little. The inside of my nose still felt like it had had a treatment though.

In the still pouring rain we drove around the capital a bit, and did make a short stop to pop inside the cathedral. It is a very calm environment.

Then a twenty minute stop at the concert hall, an absolutely beautiful space. The outside of the building is really interesting too, as the lights can change color. I took one photo through a window:

When we reversed steps I realized there was a long hallway with an exhibition of photos that students had taken in and around the building. A nine year old had taken almost the same photo I had. (And I really admired many of the other photos as well.)

Finally, it was time to board. This ship is only about a year old. It’s really beautiful and luxuriously comfortable. We seem to have more room in our cabin than we did in some of our hotel rooms. While the rooms are large, the ship itself is small. It holds fewer than 200 passengers, max, and our voyage has fifty, I believe.

We’ve been stamped out of Iceland and are “in” Panama while on board. We’ve met the expedition crew and the cabin crew. We’ve been drilled in life vests and lifeboat loading.

The biggest reminder that we are far away and remote is that the internet is slow and low data. I’ll try to keep up, but if posting stops working for a time, I’ll write anyway and upload when I can.