August 7 Grimsey Island

The sea is a magical vast space

This morning was wonderful and what Lindsay and I had been really longing for – being out bobbing around on the vastness of the ocean in zodiacs looking at cliffs and birds and soaking up the peace and tranquility of the sea. Now looking back at the huge collection of photos I took that morning I am almost completely overwhelmed. We were surrounded by 10s of thousands of birds – on the water, in the air, vying for perches on the cliffs and rocks, chattering, yabbering and squawking to each other I imagine with the simple joy of a shared freedom.  

Grimsey Island: population 100

Who's watching who?

Puffins comical in flight

Orbis et Globus

We were cruising along the cliff face of Grimsey Island, Iceland’s most northern point - human population 100, bird population millions - heading for ‘Orbis et Globus’ (Circle and Sphere) a giant concrete orb weighing nearly 9 tons which marks the Arctic Circle. The plan evidently is to have it moved each year to reflect the Arctic Circle's shifting position; I wonder if that has in fact happened so far. It may seem rather complicated, but to locate the position of Arctic Circle with any accuracy it is necessary to calculate the latitude in relation to the angle between the earth's axis and the plane of its ecliptic path about the sun. Undercerstumble? This angle is continually waxing or waning also as the earth ‘wobbles’ on its axis. 

We made it to and past the point where this Orb squats and saw it being approached by the walking group who had wandered along the cliffs. Lindsay was with another group led by the Expedition photographer both cruising around the cliffs in a zodiac and then cliff walking – he came back to the ship stuffed up with hay fever from the grasses and flowers that grew in such glorious profusion. The kayakers were out on the water too; they formed a delightful coloured flotilla.

It was sheer heaven being surrounded as we were by thousands of birds - mainly puffins at this point but milling around us and darkening the sky also were the delicate black-tipped pale grey Kittiwakes in their thousands. Sometimes they were so close you could almost reach out and touch them, but I will let the pix and videos tell the story.

This is Justine our zodiac driver that morning. 

L: What are they looking at? R: puffin burrows riddled the cliff many with puffin standing guard

L: The World  R: our Greg Mortimer

While we were circling the cliffs of Grimsey Island ‘The World’ snuck up on us. With 165 individual luxury ‘Homes’ on board this is the largest private residential ship on the planet (and twice the size of our rather small ship, the Greg Mortimer).  The World continuously circumnavigated the globe, allowing residents (who in fact own the ship) to wake up in a new destination every few days: this is extreme luxury travel!

Because we had reached the Arctic Circle the plan was to do a ‘polar plunge’. Of course we were all for that and so after lunch the call came over the intercom to tog up and report straight to the landing portal.  There we were in excited anticipation when the call came 10-15 minutes later to abort! Seems there was too much swell around the launching platform. Oh the fickle sea – or inexplicable misreading of the weather/ocean? Drats, double drats. 

Cozy on-board library with many excellent resources. 

The Tom Yum soup and Oxtail Linguini were excellent