Akureyri, Iceland

 

Akureyri is the easiest to pronounce of the ports we've visited so far in Iceland although I'm not sure if I've got the right accent on the right syllable. We didn't stop in town on our 2016 visit but we did see it from across the fjord as we drove to our accommodations in the area back then. This morning we were docked as opposed to having to take a tender. While we still got up early and went to the buffet for breakfast, we did get a second cup of coffee thinking it would not take as long to find our meeting point for our whale watching tour.

We were wrong. The operation and the boat were a little farther from our ship than we counted on and had been told through email. As I recall, the email had said, "we're right there by the cruise dock." Well, sort of. We had to walk out from our dock and around an inlet to get to the boat. And it was all against a ferocious wind out of the south which was creating white caps on the water. What was probably a ten minute walk took us a little more than twenty fighting the wind but we made it in time to board, winded and anxious about what the ride would be like out in the middle of the fjord.

A couple of seats were still available near the snack bar and Bob got us a bottle of water that I desperately needed by then. We had a small window to look out but really didn't think we were going to have much to look at with the weather and our past experience outside of Hawaii for whale watching. Hawaii in January and February is pretty much guaranteed. 

When Bob said something to the girl at the snack bar about whale watching she responded with, "Well, it's actually more like looking and hoping."

We were about a half hour into a surprisingly easy ride through the fjord when the guide who had been talking about all the possibilities suddenly got really excited. They had spotted Orcas, something that was unusual this deep into the fjord and a whale much of the crew had not seen this season so far. 

I hustled up to the second deck with camera in hand and squeezed in with all the excited crowd trying to spot them again. We never got really close but we could see their dorsal fins cut through the water each time they surfaced.

Once we were done chasing the Orcas, we continued along the fjord and spotted a spout of water which sent everyone scrambling again. This time it was a small humpback who showed himself several times and even gave us a tail salute before deep diving. We watched him surface a couple of times and then it was time to turn and go back. The captain was uncertain of how long it might take us heading into the wind.

I found my seat inside again and braced for what I thought would be a bumpy ride. Again we were surprised at how well the boat took the waves and the wind. They expertly docked again at the floating pier which looked like it might be a challenge to transit from boat to shore but wasn't as bad as I thought. We made it safely and the walk back to the ship was even quicker with the wind at our back so strong when it gusted, it pushed us into a run. Then the tide had come in and the gangplank was almost a 45 degree angle. So we had a morning of walking, running and mountain climbing.

There would be no exploring the town in the afternoon. We were done with the wind. Besides, Bob was dying to try to remotely contact his ham radio rig back home and see if he could make contacts through it. So for a while I put up with a squealing radio noise as I worked on the blog.

The Crystal Serenity offers all sorts of entertainment throughout the day and especially late afternoon and evening. We sat in the Palm Court for a time and listened to a musician then worked the jigsaw puzzle a bit more before going into dinner. Special night for me at dinner. Escargot! It was followed by the most tender and flavorful short ribs that I think I have ever had. The food is never lacking.

After dinner it was back to the Palm Court which has the best view for sailing away. We were watching the skies to see if they would get clearer and maybe yield a view of the Northern Lights later in the night. The website that predicts the possibility of viewing showed that it was high. We planned to have a look after the evening show.

Our show was one we'd seen before on our cruise in 2022 that ended abruptly with the bankruptcy of the company. It didn't matter. It was just as lively and full of entertainment as before with a salute to past icons of popular music.

Back in our room, we donned our jackets and gloves, pulled up our hoods and went outside into the windy cold. The sky was clear for the most part but between the lights of the ship and a hazy look to the sky that obscured most of the stars, we weren't hopeful. When our teeth started chattering, we gave up. As we readied for bed, we watched some of the cameras on the ship from our TV. Nothing looked like the lights were going to appear so we called it a night and went to sleep.

Iceland - The Akureyri Area

After a nice breakfast and another glance at the cow milking, we stopped into the cow barn to say goodbye. The little guys in the barn were really cute. A couple of pictures and we headed out to skirt the south side of Lake Myvatn where someone had suggested we not miss the volcanic craters.

There were quite a few cone shaped hills around the lake that had craters on top. According to the informational signs they were pseudo volcanic craters meaning they hadn't really erupted with lava flows but rather had belched gas which blew off their tops leaving a crater.

Some of our drive took us through the highlands as they call them. We passed up opportunities to get on the F roads. There were several marked by dotted brown lines on our map. Solid brown lines just indicated a gravel road and red lines were the paved ones. I could only imagine what those dotted lines were like.

At Godafoss,the Falls of the Gods, we learned another story. The falls got its name when in the year 1,000, the chieftain of the district threw idols into the falls as the country turned to Christianity.

There were so many vistas and landscapes along the way that would have made great pictures but we never would have made it to our destination if we had continued to stop. Plus there often was no place to stop and if someone was behind us, we couldn't stop in the middle of the road. Of course if the coast was clear, we did just that.

We passed through several nice small towns before arriving in Iceland's second largest city, Akureyri. It is a port city and we were not disappointed to see a cruise ship into port. It was a German cruise line and I imagined that the Myvatn Nature Bath would be very busy again in the afternoon.

Driving up the west side of the Eyjafjordur we stopped in a little town named Dalvik for lunch. There didn't seem to be a lot available but we had passed a little cafe in a wooden structure with a front porch that looked inviting so we found a spot to park and walked over to it. Inside were small tables and a quaint atmosphere. We inquired about menus and the waitress gave us a blank look, held up one finger to indicate "wait" and she went in the back room to get the proprietor.

When the owner came out she spoke very good English and told us there was only one lunch and that was fish soup with bread and a salad. Bob immediately answered, "Great!" I looked at him and blanched. I hate fish soup. I think the lady saw my distress and said she could give me plain vegetable soup--no fish. I gave her the most grateful smile I could manage and she gave me a huge bowl of soup--no fish. The salad and bread were terrific. The soup okay, but I was happy to have it without chunks of seafood in it.

Next up would be our adventure through three tunnels. I have an aversion to tunnels to begin with. I hate the thought of all those rocks and dirt above my head and wonder about the tunnel maintenance. Do they check them often? Are there cracks anywhere? You know, the usual paranoid-disaster-movie-fear. The tunnels that had two lanes were bad enough but then we were in one with only one lane and a turnout every 100 yards or so. What? Are they into playing chicken here? It was a white knuckle ride for me and I was so happy to see light at the end and know it wasn't truly because it was "the end."

Our drive ended up at Siglufjordur at the Siglo Hotel. This would be the largest hotel we would stay at in the two weeks of our visit. The hotel was only a year old and sat right on the harbour of the fjord. I had hoped we could do some laundry but there was no self serve laundry in the hotel. Laundry had to be turned in at 10 AM if you wanted it back by 6 PM and we were only staying the night. I doubted we would find a laundry service in town that would get it done by the morning.

When the fellow at the desk saw our dilemma he suggested we check out the camp ground just past the parking lot. That's a campground, I thought? To me it looked more like the town square. We walked over with a bag of Bob's underwear to wash and checked it out. On the bulletin board was a number to call to inquire about the laundry facility. Bob called and got all the instructions. First the key was hidden in one of the restrooms. We found that and promised we would leave the 700 ISK in the box on the wall to pay for our load.

What the man didn't tell us was how to work the machine which was all in Icelandic with symbols that made no sense to me at all. I took a deep breath, pushed a few buttons and it started. With a sigh of relief, we locked the door behind us and took a walk. When we returned the washer was still going. I figured I probably pushed a longer program but then when we returned again I realized this was taking way too long. An Austrian lady struck up a conversation with us. She was going to camp there for the night. We asked her about the washing machine but she had no clue either. Another camper finally got it to stop but now I was worried that maybe it hadn't rinsed the clothes. When I took them out they seemed okay so we put them into the dryer. The only problem was that an old flannel shirt I'd tucked in with the whities had faded and Bob's whities were a pastel blue. That shirt's been washed a hundred times before and not faded. Live with it, I told him. The dryer seemed to take forever as well and we went off to have dinner while we set it for another 40 minutes. Start to finish the laundry must have taken us over three hours for one load. What a way to spend an afternoon.

Our dinner of baked cod at a little restaurant called The Harbor House Cafe on the wharf was one of the best fish dishes we had the whole trip. It came with a delicious baked potato and veggies. After collecting our dried laundry on the way back to the hotel, I curled up in the window seat in our room. It looked out over the harbor and across at the mountains.

We checked the aurora forecast and it looked really good for this night. Maybe some clouds but at least the activity level was predicted to be moderate.  Bob was convinced that the best thing to do was get away from the town and since we were on the north side of Iceland if we found a spot looking out over the water to our north we would have a large viewing area. It sounded like a good plan until we went to scope it out and discovered we had to go through a tunnel--a one lane tunnel! Thankfully it was short and there wasn't any traffic.

Just beyond the tunnel was the perfect spot, a large pull-off area for viewing the ocean and nearby coast. Now we only needed the Northern Lights to get turned on. If the predictions were correct, it might be our last chance at seeing them.