The End of an Exceptional Cruise

July 26, 2024

This trip would have been an overwhelming success just because we were with our children, Jilayne and Jeffrey, and thier spouses, Rob and Heather. The fact that we all were entralled with the whole week in Iceland made it exceptional. Unfortunately, we all fly home tomorrow and reality will set in on Sunday.

Thursday we were in Djupivogur,  the only bad weather day we had on the trip. It rained, at times hard, during our entire excursion.  The good news is that we were on a bus the whole time except for two stops for photo opps.  The first was along the fjord, again with breathtaking scenry.  This time it was enhanced with the low hanging clouds.  The second stop was in the "valley of the waterfalls".  The waterfall we stopped at was the most impressive of the many we saw.  This is another opportunity to suggest that you visit Tim's Facebook page for lots of pictures.  We had a particularly good tour guide on this tour. He was both informative and humorous. Previous tour guides  had pointed out fish farms in the fjords, but our guide on Thursday was only one to explain that the farms were owned by Norwegian companies and these farms were creating an enviromental problem.  Fish farms are cages in the fjords where mostly cod and salmon are raised. The problem is that some of the fish escape the cages and infect the wild fish with  a desease called skin lice. We asked why the government didn't do something about this. He said tour guides were not to speak badly of the government or even talk about Icelandic politics, but he was able to vaguely suggest  that the government was not trying hard enough to solve this problem. He also told us that all the myths and lullabies in Iceland ended with someone dying. He read us the lyrics of a particularly popular lullaby and then sang it in Icelandic. The words were very sad and, in fact, had the baby dying at the end. It was  beautiful when sung in Icelandic. There is actually a very good reason why the lullabies are like this.  In the 17th century when these lullabies were created most everyone lived in turf houses with poor heat and little food. It was a very hard life and many parents thought their babies would be better off in the after life.

Friday turned out to be the best day weatherwise; temperatures in the upper 50's with abundant sun.  We are in Heimaey in the Westland(?) Islands.  Tim and Lynda did not signup for an excursion today.  The children are on an ATV excursion. There was an excursion Tim wanted to sign up for, an e-scooter trip to see a Puffin colony. Tim was outvoted 5 to 1 from taking the excursion. He did go into the village and enquire about a taxi taking him out to the Puffin colony.  It was reasonably priced but the driver would not wait for Tim to take some pictures and bring him back to the boat.  He would drop Tim off and return later. Tim wasn't wild about the thought of standing among the Puffins waiting for the taxi and watching our ship sail off toward Reykjavik. 

Usually our blog is full of many references to the fine meals we have had during our travels. A quick word about the food onboard the Viking Mars. The food was excellent in all three of the restaurants on board.  The only disappointment was Manfredi's, the Italian specialty restaurant.  While the food was very good, the service was no where near the quality of service in the other restaurants.

Thanks to  those of you who have read our blog and to all of you that responded on Facebook to our pictures as they were posted.  We look forward to having you join us vicariously on our next adventure.