Yesterday we joined our ship about noon and left Reykjavik at 6:00 pm. Welcomed on board with champagne, we were quickly registered and seated for lunch. Our cabins are wonderful complete with a walk in closet, marble bathroom, spacious sitting area, makeup table and balcony.

The ship traveled north passing the mountainous coast. It never really got dark although they said sunset was at 12:08 am and sunrise at1:56 am. Isafjordour is as far north as we will go, just above 66 latitude.

The clouds were low, hiding the mountain tops as we entered the fiord this morning. Gary and I visited Bird Island this morning and spent the afternoon wandering through town this afternoon. We were entertained by the local theatre group who worn traditional costumes and performed some traditional dances for us. Isafjordour is the second largest community in Iceland, population 2500.

Most buildings here and in Reykjavik have painted corrugated steel siding. There are very few trees in Iceland and have not seen any here. Early boat builders used driftwood and that is still the source of wood. The driftwood comes from Siberia. It is brought out to sea down the Siberian rivers and over a period of 4-5 years floats around the north pole, down the east coast of Greenland and into Icelandic waters.

Bird Island has 2 permanent inhabitants. They earn their living by collecting, cleaning and preparing down from the eider ducks that nest on the island. We saw artic terns, eider ducks, guillamo ducks and several variety of gulls. There were puffins but we didn’t see them. We also saw some seals sunning on the rocks. We had typical summer weather with temperatures of 10C for the high.
As we walked around the island we had to carry sticks to ward off the birds defending their nests.