Days 7 and 8 - Sailing to Seydisfjordur, Iceland

Our first stop in Iceland required a sea day of relaxation to get there.  This was a great time to enjoy reading, checking out the shops, talking with the future cruise saleswoman about a trip we'd love to take around South America, and attend a port lecture about our first two stops in Iceland.  

Then the following morning we pulled into the small town of Seydisfjordur on the eastern side of Iceland. When we arrived around 7:00 am the temperature was about 45 degrees with grey skies.  The overcast skies kept the temperature from getting any warmer than 50 by the late afternoon so we had to bundle up for our tour.  But oh the beauty as we sailed into the fjord with snow covered mountains all around us.

Our bus trip took us over the Fjardarheidi Pass where just last month they had a ski competition.  We were told the road is only plowed 3 times a week so travel is curtailed during the winter months.

Our trip took us up and over into some greener landscape

where we saw farms that had already harvested huge quantities of hay (note the white plastic rolls on the field) and already growing a second crop

Our bus let us out in this tiny village of Bakkagerdi - population about 100 - so we could wander a bit and just absorb what life was like in the many fishing villages in Iceland.  This intriguing house really caught our eye, it not only had a grass roof but the dirt was mounded up and grass covered around the base and in spots all the way to the roof.

Just a block over from the house was a tiny campground

and near it a 110 year old church with a beautiful painting of Christ giving the Sermon on the Mount but standing atop a nearby hill in the village.

Nearby was the sign board for the little restaurant where we enjoyed some wonderful fish soup and terrific buffet fish meal.  The flowers out in front were in unique "pots" - carved out rocks and a wheel.

About a mile up the road was our real objective, Gorgarfjordur Eystri - a bird nesting area on the seaside cliffs.  There we saw all kinds of Arctic puffins as well as fulmars.

In that same area was a small fishing boat marina and tiny flowers decorating the sides of the cliffs.

On our drive back toward the ship we passed this beautiful waterfall

and lots of much smaller ones as their was water rolling down the mountains wherever it could carve a groove sometimes the streams had long falls but mostly it cascaded down.

More than once the bus had to stop to wait for sheep to move out of the road because they are all over - roaming freely as the practice here is to let them run loose after lambing and shearing and then round them back up in the fall with farmers working together to get then into a communal pen and then separate them out as to who they belong to (see photo of a picture of a gathering pen)

At the end of the day we set sail for our next port on the north side of the island that would take us into the Arctic Circle before turning into the fjord and the city of Akureyri.