WanderingBrit

AIDA Perla docked after us, and disgorged her 4,350 passengers swamping this tiny tourist village. There’s very little to see in the “town” itself beyond souvenir shops; mainly this is an excursion hub. We chose an afternoon excursion to a dairy goat farm, and it was excellent. An absolutely charming couple welcomed us into their farm home, and walked us through the history and current practice of dairy goats, with delicious samples! Tender ride ashore Perla got the floating dock Photo stop to look both ways along the Fjord Our hosts Explaining Brown Cheese Photo stop on the way back There was a WC at the farm, and another at the lake photo stop on the way back.

Oh hey Geiranger

It’s a sea day, so not much to report. Here’s a nice wake sunset though

Private Internet Access PIA. We’ve been able to stream video on demand and upload to YouTube while at sea with it enabled, otherwise impossible.

Sun shines on our sail away from Torshavn, and we decided to crack open the included bubbly!

The afternoon included excursion was actually quite good. Bus drive to 4 different vantage points, about 2 hours, no rest room facilities. When docked at a pier we like to walk around on our own in the morning, and then have the latest excursion possible in the afternoon. For a place that gets 300 days of rain each year, we really lucked out!

We’re going to frame ours 😎

As Google will confirm, it’s to mark when a sailor crosses the Arctic Circle, which we officially did Jul 30th at 8:30pm. Splashed with ice water, blue paste on your nose, and a shot of aquavit marks the occasion. Every passenger received a certificate.

Torshavn isn’t much to look at from the pier, but the town has some charming little buildings. Perhaps spoiled by our chats with welcoming Icelanders and their dry wit, the Faroese we’ve met have been taciturn and unforthcoming.

Today was a sea day, and because the distance from Iceland to Faroes isn’t all that far we’ve wallowed along at barely 8 knots. A bit of a swell but nothing uncomfortable, just as well because the stabilizers are great at this speed. We had our blue nose ceremony, a bridge tour, a special meal by Chef Kasi of World Cafe, and a movie under the stars! Not much of a view Pool to ourselves because we got there early for a pre ceremony pool morning Festivities begin Our booked bridge tour

According to the time stamp on my photos, we were coming alongside at 07:30. Our itinerary showed 08:00 as our arrival time.

A real time update on the subject from Jupiter, on the North Sea between Iceland and Faroe Islands. Satellite internet is pretty good, and even better when using my VPN client. Some examples; - the site I use to log my daily rowing errors out when logging an update, unless I switch on my VPN at which point it’s perfect - Facebook takes a very long time to load or render, unless I’m using my VPN when it works pretty smoothly - uploading images here will always give a server error, or error on one out of several files, unless I use my VPN in which case it’s perfect - most streaming sites are blocked or down prioritized, unless you use a VPN in which they work surprisingly well First shot: Speedtest on ship WiFi, no VPN Second shot, with VPN established: Download/upload will vary a bit depending on competing traffic, but notice that ping and jitter are better with VPN in place. I am emphatically not a network guy, but I suspect that somewhere in the carrier grade NATting being done by Starlink some routing overhead is being introduced, that the VPN avoids by being essentially a long running session. My reality is that I have a more responsive online experience when my VPN is enabled, across a whole variety of services. YMMV

Seydisfjordur gave us the weather welcome we expected for all of Iceland, but it stayed dry. A really charming little town with some delightful eccentricities, it’s the only ferry port for the entire country. Included excursion was a 35 minute walk around town followed by a music and food reception in the community centre. Saga and Windstar were both in port, and neither of them were treated to the community centre reception 😎 Residents repaint their rainbow street every May, with paint supplied by the community council. Our guide offers simple guidance on how to be accepted in Seydisfjordur: “don’t be an *****”. Iceland is struggling a little to balance the explosion of tourism - towns routinely see up to 10x their population in visitors in a single day - with their own quality of life. Harbor operators make big fees from cruise ships, as do tour bus operators, but I have the sense relatively little makes its way to the residents whose homes become the object of so much curiosity. It’s a stunning country, with an admirable history of doing the right thing for as many people as possible.

Akureyri is as charming as I remember from 15 years ago. We tendered ashore at around 10:30 planning to wander about before our included excursion at 1:00. Iceland is sparse when it comes to public WCs, and Akureyri is no exception. Though there’s really nothing posted to tell you, there’s actually a nice tourist information and shop in the large circular building by the small boat docks, with a WC in the basement. Lots of charming buildings in the old part of town Every Icelandic town we have visited has a least one rainbow walkway The botanical gardens are beautiful, especially on a day like today. There are 2 public WCs here, expect to wait in line. LOLOAQICI82QB4IP to quote my Dad, might be one just for the British audience 😁 View from high on the hill overlooking the town, from our included excursion.

The same thought went through my mind, though conditions today were calm.

A 10k is still a 10k even if I took over 45 minutes 😁

Surprise! Akureyri became a tender port. Since our excursion is in the afternoon I planned to hit the Gym first thing, which I did and found quite a few already there at 06:30 About half way in to my workout the ship lost power, and the room went dark. Most left at that point since many of the cardio machines won’t function usefully without power. I soldiered on and completed my row, though admittedly a good bit slower than usual - too much wine yesterday. The elevators were of course out so I had a slow climb back to our floor. Water was out so we had no choice but to sit and wait for about 40 minutes for it to be restored. Things are starting to get back to normal, though Akureyri will now be a tender port as we didn’t have all motive systems back online to come alongside. I have to assume the lack of power and water impacted breakfast service - we haven’t been yet and were always planning a late start.

Last night we chatted with the head waiter, General Manager, Executive Chef, and Chef de Cuisine for the World Cafe. They must have recognized me from my Face Ache profile picture and wanted to assure us that they were addressing the deficiencies in service I’ve noted here, and also over on FB. This was within a matter of hours of sharing my observations on an FB group that is very much for fans of the brand, suggesting that it’s monitored closely. Without prompting they knew our names and Stateroom, and the assurances seemed sincerely motivated. This reinforces advice provided earlier on this thread, to make concerns known to the staff in order that they have a chance to address them - I wish I’d been a little more confident and done so myself.

Water and power fully restored, and we will be tendering ashore. I have to think there will be some with early excursions that have to skip breakfast?

Just as we were pulling in to Akureyi the vessel suffered a complete power loss, and we are stationary in the water a short distance from the port. Electricity was off intermittently for around 25 minutes, but seems back now - we still have no water. The Captain assured us it’s nothing to worry about, and if need be we’ll just drop anchor where we are. A “code alpha” (medical emergency) was called on ship wide tannoy for The World Cafe, port side.

After a couple of hours of paddling we decided to walk the the town, which I last visited in 2008! While there is much new construction, much I remember. The clouds had started to come in by this time.

Our excursion was kayaking across the bay. All the early departures were called to the Star Theatre, which was packed. Once our group was called we disembarked and walked across the barely finished new cruise ship dock to the parking area. Our group of 9 then walked to the other side of the harbour to get kitted up four kayaking adventure. It would be an understatement to say the weather was beautiful.

Sailing in to Isafjordur was very scenic this morning!

Good morning Iceland!

Daylight never ends! It’s fun to actually be a ship at sea, to feel the thrum deep down in the keel. I picked a starboard cabin so we’d have views of land as we sail clockwise around Iceland. We think the PV cabins are the perfect sweet spot between price, space, and amenities. Eagle eyed may spot the magnetic clips I use to manage our excursion tickets 😎