Monday 10th August - Grimsey Island - Siglufjordur, Iceland

We awoke at 6am to find we were near Grimsey Island in quite heavy seas and strong winds. Kit came on the loudspeaker and said it wasn't possible to land! Another disappointment in what is fast becoming an unhappy saga, especially for some passengers who want her to apologise!

The temperature has risen to 9 degrees with heavily overcast skies and a forecast of rain later in the day.

I took a bit of video and some photos of the island which reminded me of Tristan da Cunha for its bleakness and the small area the few inhabitants have to live on. 

Grimsey Island

Edinburg of the Seven Seas?

I managed to take a video, on maximum zoom, of the Arctic Circle marker post, a reminder of a similar sign we saw on the Dalton Highway in Alaska.

Arctic Circle marker post

The ship did a 360 degree circle of the island before heading off to mainland Iceland, about 30 miles away, and Siglufjordur, a small settlement on the north coast.  Let's hope we have better luck landing there.

We had breakfast on our own for the first time on the cruise.

It was a two hour sail, through quite choppy seas, to our berth in the small fishing town of Siglufjordur. As we neared the town, a pilot boat came out to deliver a pilot on board and he directed the ship to the mooring.
 

Siglufjordur pilot boat

We thought we would take a walk before lunch and went into the town to the church, which was built in 1932. It was closed.

There was a steady drizzle and we decided to return to the ship for lunch. On the way back, we passed a small group of renovated turf-roofed cottages.

Wendy learned that the church opened at 1pm, which gave us time, before the afternoon guided walk, to go back and look inside. The rain was now quite heavy, which made sightseeing far from pleasurable. Still, we enjoyed our visit to the church which had the usual model ship hanging from the ceiling. The stained glass windows were done in 1974. A young girl volunteer took us upstairs to see the community room and Sunday School, which housed the Siglufjordur Middle School for 23 years. The first vicar, Bjarni Thorsteinsson, is commemorated with a bust outside the church and a portrait upstairs in the Sunday School area. He also composed church music.

Outside the church was this wonderful old Cadillac hearse. A great way to go!

We then joined a group led by John and a local guide for a walk in the town. In pouring rain, we walked to the Herring Era Museum, which divided into 3 buildings. Outside in heavy rain, we watched women gutting herring and packing them in pink salt. All the participants, including a small girl, were dressed in clothes from the olden days and they sang as they salted the herring. We became so cold and wet, that we went inside to dry off, but came out again to watch them dancing to music from an accordion. A few Silversea passengers joined in, including Gordon and Sophie, all in the pouring rain!

The museum consisted of separate buildings, one housing old herring boats, another the machinery used in rendering herring to produce oil. By far the most interesting part was the Boat Museum, which was beautifully lit and designed.

In the Boat Museum we were given 3 different kinds of herring to taste. We had the smoked and also the Christmas herring on rye bread, which was delicious and we washed it down with Aquavit, a very strong Schnapps-type drink. Most welcome after the rain! Here, the director of the award-winning museum showed us around.

Herring on rye bread with Schnapps

I decided to cut the visit short as the rain continued to pour down and I walked back to the ship and a lovely hot soak in the bath. Wendy came back shortly after. We sat and wrote our diary/blog, drinking tea brought by Bisht, our butler.

Wendy read a leaflet about the local church and discovered that, to mark the centenary of the birth of the Rev. Bjarni Thorsteinsson, a glockenspiel was presented to the church by some local people who had moved to Reykjavik. At 6pm every evening, it plays the final bars of "Kirkjuhvoll", one of the Rev. Thorsteinsson's compositions. We went out on to the aft deck to try and listen. We just about made out the sound of the tune through the gales and teeming rain!

We had an interesting dinner with Jack and Mary Ann from San Francisco and Lori and Gordon. There was much talk about photography!

As we went to bed, the ship left its berth for the sail to Husavik, about 50 miles away. Tomorrow there will be a day's coach tour of the interior. We just need the weather to improve, otherwise it won't be much fun.