Tuesday, Wednesday
Sept. 5 and 6
Grundarfjordur and Isafjordur
Tuesday, Sept. 5: Grundarfjordur to Isafjordur
First, a little about the Icelandic language: like “floss” in the name of a place means “waterfall”, so too does “fjordur” in the name of a place mean “fjord”. So Grundarfjordur effectively means “the fjord of Grundar”. Likewise, Isafjordur means “the fjord of Isa”. Both towns are located in a fjord, so they are named the same as the fjord where they are located.
We are headed to Grundarfjordur
The previous evening, Captain Rowden had announced an initial change to the plans for visiting Grundarfjordur. He said that the forecast was for winds of 20 – 25 knots, blowing in a direction that would push us onto the dock. The bow and stern thrusters on the ship are only powerful enough to move the ship against about 20 knot winds. So, as the captain put it, if we docked at Grundarfjordur, we might not be able to leave for a long time. The simple solution is that we would anchor just offshore and tender people back and forth to the town.
Just offshore of Grundarfjordur as we approached
In the photo just above, the wind and waves don’t look too bad, but this was a very protected area. As we got closer, Susan and I went out onto the open deck and could feel the wind and see the choppy water. When I felt the wind, I had to wonder a bit. I heard the anchor going down, but did not see the tenders being lowered.
Note the choppy water and whitecaps; and this is inside the protective harbor.
Pretty soon, Captain Rowden comes on the PA system and you can tell he is a bit frustrated. He announced “The forecast was for winds of 20 – 25 knots, but we are actually seeing 30-40 knots and we cannot safely or comfortably operate the tenders in this wind. We are making another change to the itinerary and heading directly to Isafjordur today: we expect to get there and dock about 3:00.” So, up came the anchor and the ship turned and headed out of the fiord. Besides seeing the town and surrounding mountains from the ship, we did see a very tall waterfall in the distance as we left the bay.
We did see another waterfall, from a distance.
Along this part of the cruise, Iceland was protecting us from any large waves, so at least the detour was comfortable and we did get to Isafjordour about 3:00 where we were able to dock in a very protected bay and harbor.
The town of Isafjordour is at the end of the Isafjadour fiord.
Approaching Isafjordur and a colorful little tug coming out to help.
Although we were protected from any large waves, we could stil feel the full effects of the wind from out on the deck and you can hear the wind in this video as we approach the dock. We would tie up along the dock you see at the end of that video: because of the orientation of the dock, the ship would be heading almost directly into the wind, which made docking and undocking relatively easy.
Since we were not even supposed to be in Isafjordur this day, there were no excursions or other activities planned or available so Susan and I just got off the ship and took a walk around the nice little town.
The Star Pride at the dock as we walk into town
Isafjordur seemed to be a very pleasant little town with nice sidewalks and lots of bright flowers. We could definitely feel the effects of the wind, even here in the town and you can see some of the effects in the flags and on the bay in this video.
There were a lot of colorful flowers.
We walked around for about 40 minutes before there was a significant threat of some rain and we headed back to the ship. Tonight, we dined in Caudro 44 again and got to know a delightful couple seated next to us who, it turned out, were also from the Atlanta area. Music and dancing and, of course, some cognac in the Compass Rose completed the day.
Wednesday, Sept. 6: Isafjordur
We awoke to a decent day in Isafjordur, but we had a bit of a problem. The original itinerary did not have us in Isafjordur on this day, but a day or two later, so the destination/excursion people had to scramble to try to set up some activities. On top of that, there was a large cruise ship in port, on their planned schedule, and it had effectively “sucked up” all the available local excursions. There was essentially nothing for us to do. Kuba and the excursion people were able to arrange a trip to a local waterfall, the Dynjandi waterfall. (No, I don’t know why Dynjandi does not have “foss” as part of the name.) The only problem was that this would not happen until 2:15 in the afternoon since the tours were busy with the large cruise ship until then. So, of course, Susan and I took another, longer, walk around the town.
Nice little, well-kept town
At the beginning of our walk, the town was very quiet, almost deserted. Then we started to see more and more people and I realized that the people were being tendered in from the large cruise ship, filling up the town. There were several sculptures or memorials in the town, making me think that Iceland, in general, seems to be very fond of sculptures and memorials. Perhaps making sculptures is what they do in the long winter nights. After all, in Isafjordur, we are less than 100 miles from the Artic Circle.
The large bronze “Fisherman’s Memorial” commemorates fishermen who have been lost at sea.
As we looped around the town, there was a nice walkway along one part of the waterfront where we could see some equipment expanding, or perhaps repairing, the breakwater protecting the harbor. In the distance was the large cruise ship with it’s tenders shuttling back and forth.
Looking out into the fjord where a large cruise ship had anchored
We walked around for about 90 minutes before heading back to the ship to await lunch time and then our 2:15 excursion to the waterfall. As the 2:15 time approached, we met in the lounge then headed to the three busses that would take us to the Dynjandi waterfall. We got on the first bus, which was a small, 18 passenger one while other people got on larger busses of about 40 and 50 passengers. (The number of busses and the sizes will make a difference later.) Since we were in the smaller bus and it got loaded quickly, we managed to stay ahead of the other busses for the entire trip. It was an interesting one hour trip to the falls with our guide providing information about the area and the roads, including the long (7 kilometer and 4 kilometer) tunnels we passed through.
Long view of the full series of falls
The falls were rather impressive when we pulled into the parking lot. There was one fall at the top of the cliff, and several small ones that eventually fed the water into yet another fiord. The mission, if we accepted it, was to climb up the falls to the level of the base of the big falls. Of course, we could not refuse!
One of the lower falls: pretty significant itself
The first part of the trail to the top was easy going, with a nice trail and some beautiful small falls to stop and enjoy. But, pretty soon, the nice walkway stopped and we had to scramble over dirt, rocks and mud. Because of the adjacent falls, the rocks were wet and slippery, making the climb even more interesting. And, I do mean the climb. I’m not sure how high the plateau was that we were aiming for, but if you look at the photo just below, it was taken almost half way up the climb. Look closely at the edge of the plateau at the base of the big falls and you can see a few people silhouetted against the falls: that is where we were headed.
Notice the size of the people on the top ledge below the large falls.
We made it! And from up here there was an impressive view of the falls and fiord below us. We caught our breath for a few minutes, taking in the view.
We are now where the people in previous photo were.
Of course, as you probably know, going down a “trail” like this one is often more difficult than going up, although not as tiring. Thankfully, we had brought our lightweight hiking boots with us on this trip and they worked very well on this hike as well as a couple of other hikes yet to come.
Once everyone had made their way back to the bus, we loaded up and headed back to the ship. About 30 minutes into our ride back, our guide’s phone was ringing rather insistently, so she answered it and it was the guide on one of the other busses. They were still at the falls and were missing two people. It ended up being a rather long story, but the short version is that two people had gotten on the wrong bus and the guide of that bus did not notice the extra people. The ship was scheduled to leave as soon as the busses got back by 6:00, but that bus with the missing people ended up being 45 minutes late. No real damage done, but there were some worried people for a while.
As we approached Isafjordur the bus pulled over into a ski-lift parking lot for us to get a good view (and photos) of the town, fiord, and the Star Pride.
The Star Pride is on the little spit of land in middle-right of photo.
A mostly normal evening followed, with us having dinner in Amphora with a pleasant couple from Phoenix. The big event was the “Blue-nose” ceremony. About 9:00 that evening, we crossed the Artic Circle. We didn’t really need to on our modified itinerary, but it was part of the original itinerary and I think Captain Rowdan took us out of our way so we could have the experience. Apparently, part of the tradition of crossing the Artic Circle for the first time is to have a blue dot placed on your nose, representing the color your nose would be if it stayed out in the cold air too long. The kitchen supplied a sort of blue (food coloring) paste and the captain and the hotel manager (2nd in command, Andreas Pitsch) applied the blue noses to everyone who wanted one in the Compass Rose. And naturally, the celebration was even more reason for drinking and dancing that evening. The next day we received certificates documenting our crossing of the Artic Circle.
Susan tries to see her blue nose while Captain Rowdan seems to enjoy his task.
While all this was going on, the ship continued its voyage toward Akureyri,
End of Chapter 2: Grundarfjordur and Isafjordur
You can now click your “Back button” and return to the main document, or click this Chapter 3 to continue to Chapter 3.