30 September 2005:

Morning:

Well, it was a rough passage last night. Many things went bump or crash as we ploughed through the dark North Atlantic. Luckily, none of the crashes came from our cabin. We had a few books jump off the shelf and a bottle of water that leaped off the bar and onto the floor in a suicide attempt, but nothing broke. They have changed our tour times and the tour itinerary a couple of times now as our estimated arrival time in Reykjavik changed. But now we’re getting close. I can see snowcapped mountains off my balcony. The seas are still rough, the temperature is 40 degrees and the wind is blowing at 45 knots. So, the wind chill is damn cold. I went up to Skywalker’s Lounge a little earlier to sit and watch Iceland come into view. Skywalker’s is the highest part of the ship, on deck 18, so you have a really nice view in all directions. While there, I decided to go out on deck 16, which is the highest open deck, in order to take some pictures.  The wind was amazing. It was very difficult to stand upright and in a few spots where the wind was being channeled along the deck it was even difficult to breath. And the seas are far better this morning than they were last night. But, the good news was that I had the deck completely to myself….not a single other person, either crew or passenger, was venturing out on the upper decks. It is still mostly cloudy, with occasional sunshine. The forecast is for another cold front to hit us in a few hours. The Captain has changed our time in port at Reykjavik again. He has decided that we have to leave 3 hours earlier than the last plan because the cold front will bring more rough seas and will slow our progress towards Greenland tonight and tomorrow. So we’ll leave early in order to have time to get to Greenland by the day after tomorrow.

We are getting very close to the coast of Iceland now. I can see tiny villages dotting the small areas of flat land along the coast.  The land rises up quickly into the mountains in what seems like just a few hundred yards from the sea. Most of the villages appear to be just a few dozen families huddled along a river or small bay. Then there will be a few miles of empty, barren, rocky ground followed by another small village.

Evening (the saga continues):

We did the tour….it wasn’t the tour we wanted, it wasn’t the tour we signed up for, but it was a tour. Iceland has some stark and beautiful countryside…..unfortunately, we didn’t see much of it, but we saw some of it. And most of what we saw was seen either while huddling in a bus or while freezing our collective asses off in the wind. First, I should say that common sense would tell you that the weather here will be cold. Second, before our tours started, the guy doing the announcements on the PA system told everyone twice that “the weather is cold and the wind is high, please dress accordingly and if you need to return to your cabin for extra clothes, do so now”. But still, half way through the first stop on our tour, which involved doing a 15 minute walk across rocky river valley, I heard people complaining and saying things like “why didn’t they tell us we’d be freezing out here??”. My only answer would be: “It’s an intelligence test. The place is called ICELAND you moron….of course it’s cold.” But I didn’t say that….at least not out loud. But with that little rant out of the way I have to say that this place is Freaking Cold! The wind was blowing so much that at many of the stops, people would step off the bus and immediately turn around and get back on. Many places you couldn’t really control where you walked….you just went in the direction the wind was blowing you….if reminded me of all those TV reporters doing live ‘in the center of the hurricane’ reports.  We saw lots of nice countryside and lakes and geothermal areas (but sadly, no geysers; that would have been on the tour we signed up for). At the end of our tour our guide did say that she hoped we would not think that this was typical weather for Iceland….they normally had a “moderate” climate and that this September was the coldest September in 140 years. Did I mention that it was damn cold?

We got back to the ship late, but managed to run to dinner about 30 minutes late. During dinner I heard our side thrusters kick in and figured we were heading out to sea. I did look up a few minutes later and saw that we were still at, or very close to the dock. At short time later our Captain (a Commodore actually…Commodore Caesare Ditel) came on the PA system an announced….and I am not making this up….that he had tried to sail away from Reykjavik, but that the wind was blowing so hard that we couldn’t get away from the dock. Yep, we are fricking trapped at the dock in Reykjavik….stuck to the dock like a bug in a roach motel…all because the wind is blowing so hard that this 1000 foot long, 110,000 ton boat with its Quad diesel turbo-fan engines that generate multi-mega horsepower thrust can’t get loose from the pier. My guess is that if we are trapped here for more than a couple more hours then the stop in Greenland may be in jeopardy. Now, I’m just a little surprised that this situation came as a shock to the Commodore…..I mean hasn’t someone run the numbers before? The boat has a certain cross-sectional area, the wind is blowing at a given speed and direction, the engines can produce a certain, known  thrust…..it sounds to me like an SAT question……but apparently the ol’ Commodore hadn’t done the math and had to figure this out by trial and error….so here we sit. And since we are sitting in port, the casinos are closed and hence I am killing time typing this message instead of trying to enrich my retirement portfolio at the blackjack tables.

Iceland is interesting and even beautiful….in a stark, wind-swept sort of way. But there are strange and interesting twists here. For example, Iceland has had one Nobel Prize laureate, a novelist (whose name is unpronounceable) and his books have sold more copies in Iceland than the Bible….yet this is a country that elected to be 100% Christian over a thousand years ago. Their food specialties include Svid, which is singed sheep’s head and also Harkarl, which is shark which has been buried in the sand for a few days to ripen. Their local drink is Brennivin which is nicknamed Black Death because of its formidable alcohol content. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to sample the local cuisine on our tour today….but if things don’t change with the wind soon I may be able to have more of the Icelandic experience tomorrow.