#bolungarvik

[captainmartinisblog]

Fosses and Fjordurs

Saturday 15th June 2024 – Isafjordur, Iceland.

Last night, I was so shattered after such a long, not to say slightly disappointing day yesterday, in spite of the gorgeous weather. There was a barbecue poolside in the evening that the others wanted to go to but there was no lobster and the music was such a racket to my ears that I took my leave to watch Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ in the Theatre instead, presented on DVD by the Metropolitan Opera.

I’ve not been to a Mozart opera before and it was a bit ‘weird’, I must say. Let’s just say I’m glad I went but I’m just as glad it was ‘free’! I was so dog-tired by this time that my head barely hit the pillow and was asleep. I may not have written-up my Blog but at least I got 7 hours sleep for the first time!

Today we arrived in our last Icelandic port of call on this cruise, Isafjordur, capital of the Western Fjords, with a population of around 2,500. It was founded in the 9th century on the northern trading routes but today, fishing and tourism are its main income. It’s also just a hundred miles from the Arctic Circle with a sub-arctic climate and the mist had rolled-in from the North! Thankfully, it cleared somewhat during the day and it wasn’t that cold really.

We were followed (yet again) by Costa Favolosa but also today by Holland America’s Zuiderdam (2002: 81,769 tons and 2,272 passengers) which anchored and began tendering.

Sister ship to Westerdam and Noordam we were on last year, she’s similar in size and build origin to Costa Favolosa but a bit nicer looking, in my opinion.

While Angie went off to climb up Gongumannafoss Waterfall (that’s the sort of thing she does), Andrew, Sally & I took the less demanding local highlights tour, calling at Bolungarvik a few miles away in an adjacent fjord.

Here we were entertained with some Icelandic songs by a rather nice looking local called Petur.

Beside the fjord on an ancient fishing boat beaching site is the Osvor Maritime Museum, a collection of wooden turf-roofed fishermen’s huts.

The huts are 20th century reproductions and it’s less of a ‘maritime museum’ than it is about dried fish – and the local ‘character’, dressed in traditional fishermen’s oil-skins, seemed only too keen to have his photo taken with the ladies; though thankfully, he wasn’t covered in equally traditional fish oil and whale blubber (because that would have put them off!).

Driving back the other side of Isafjordur, our little excursion stopped at the Bunarfoss Falls in Skutulsfjordur (all these ‘fosses’ and ‘fjordurs’ can be really confusing!) Here we drank ice-cold melt-water from the mountain stream.

I may have mentioned the purple lupins before, when we were on the island of Heimaey but they are everywhere in Iceland, yet they are not endemic. However, they do spread like weeds and are a bit controversial. They were imported as an experiment from Alaska post WWII because it was discovered that they converted the nutrients in the volcanic deposits into ‘proper’ soil and help to reduce landslides – of which there are rather a lot, it seems!

Today’s was, in contrast to yesterday, a nice gentle excursion, made all the more pleasant by our cheery guide (who was a post-grad student from Tottenham, by the way!)

Departing Isafjordur, the cheeriness subsided when there was an ‘urgent announcement’ from Captain Olaf telling us that storm winds are predicted around the entrance to Prince Christian Sound in Greenland and that heavy ice-floes would also make it too dangerous to visit Nanortalik, the next port on our itinerary. It’s those Elves again……

[davidstanleytravel]

This heath spotted orchid was growing beside the trail to the Valagil Waterfall near Bolungarvik, Iceland.

[kuuk3n]

Aurora Borealis: Lakótelep edition

azt kell mondjam hogy az új telefon kamerája egész jó (iphone 12 pro)

[stephanocardona]

Bolungarvik by haukursig

[frauleinledzi]

[thomasverfaille]

Tunnelvision

[toptravelspot]

2016-08 Last sun rays kissing Bolungarvik. Westfjords Iceland. . . . . . . . #toptravelspot #iceland #bolungarvik #sunset #fjord #westfjords #visitwestfjords #locationindependent #travel #traveling #instantraveling #instatraveling #icelandstopover #pixeltheplanet #earthpix #wanderlust #landscapephotography #travelphotography #sonyalpha (at Bolungarvík)

[lindsaystravelblogs]

Sunday and Monday

Sunday

Something of a strange day today. We had breakfast and checked out and drove out to Bolungarvik (through another long tunnel) at the ocean end of the fiord. Not much to see, but we found a road not marked on our very poor map that took us over the mountain and down to Skalavik Bay in the next fiord.  It was pretty scary, a very rough unsealed track, narrow and very steep in places with an impressive drop off the side of the mountain if you took a corner too fast.  It was also very foggy for a few kilometres, quite dense at the top of the mountain, but fortunately only 3 or 4 other cars (that we saw – there may have been others!).  There were a few campers at the end of the road, some with kids enjoying the water and the black sand beach – but it was too cold for us.

We drove back over the mountain with the fog lifting slightly and back to Isafjordur through the tunnel (we had to give way to oncoming traffic this time) and on towards Sudureyri through the tunnels we had traversed yesterday. Those tunnels are in a T-shape with Flateyri to the south, Sudureyri to the west and Isafjordur to the north.

Sudureyri was a fairly rundown fishing village but was interesting because they were unloading a lot of fish from a boat into big tubs on the dock. We have no idea what the fish were, but they were being sorted into boxes and some were more than a metre long - the smallest were close to half a metre. The boxes being landed were filled with ice among the fish and a lot of it had melted and mixed with the fish blood. Of course, when they tipped the boxes up to empty them, hundreds of litres of mostly blood flowed all over the dock. The Black-headed Gulls loved it and a big flock of them descended on the fish, feasting on their innards and the blood. Educational rather than edifying!

We continued south, past Flateyri to explore some minor roads into more fiords before heading for our digs for the night.  I deliberately mentioned Holt and Flateyri in yesterday’s drive because our hotel tonight was the Holt Hotel.  In other words, we drove past it yesterday and had to back-track about 50 kilometres to get to our hotel tonight.  We have no idea why our trip planners did that unless they couldn’t book the hotels in the other sequence.

Not to worry, the Hotel Holt was said to be in Flateyri so we bumped along the road until we got there.  It was a strange village, very dilapidated, the poorest we had seen, with few residents, empty houses – and a whole lot of tourists running back and forth across the road in front of us without looking.  There were two tourist busses there – why? if there was nothing to look at.  There was a little coffee shop and a smaller craft shop, both overflowing with careless tourists – but no Holt Hotel (thank goodness!)

I had seen a sign for Holt on the other side of the fiord so we bumped back along the track to the main road, across the fiord and up the road signposted to Holt.  The only two buildings in sight were a couple of kilometres in so we wound our way in and turned left to the more promising of the two.  Wrong one!  We arrived at the other one, dilapidated and distinctly uninviting from the outside, and initially unwelcoming inside.  ‘We don’t open until 4pm’ despite our travel itinerary saying check-in is at 2pm.  We sat in the car for a while, then moved into a more comfortable sitting room near Reception and soon our room was ready and we got settled in.  The owner offered us fish for dinner at $50-odd a head, but we ended up eating in our room - some of the food we have carried or purchased along the way.  The hotel was nowhere near as bad inside as outward appearances predicted so we were quite happy and had a comfortable night’s sleep.

Monday

We topped up with fuel at a roadside pump near Flateyri – 41 litres at a tad over $AU3.50 a litre – not too bad for 701 kilometres, particularly given the roads here.  Then it was back through the dreaded tunnels (we had right of way this time) to Isafjordur (again) then progressively south-east back and forth along the shores of several fiords until we exited the Westfjords and back toward the Ring Road (Road 1). On the way, we stopped at Sudavik to look at some seals – a few greyish lumps on some rocks almost too far away to see. I doubt if I would have found them if there weren’t some other tourists pointing them out to each other.

We called in at the Arctic Fox Centre where there was a real fox sleeping outside – hard to see but with a beautiful multicoloured coat. There are snow-white foxes that are mainly in the snow country and brown and black ones in the warmer areas. Foxhunting was and still is a thriving sport, but despite this they are still listed as ‘of least concern’.  The display was a bit ratty, but there were lots of historical photos with interesting stories attached.

We didn’t stay long but I had seen a birding pond advertised for visitors a couple of kilometres further on and we went there. We could see lots of birds there, but they were too far away to identify.  We saw a track to where you could get a photo and see some of the birds so we drove out a little way, took some pics and headed back – into the fury of a woman running down the track saying you are not allowed to even walk out there, much less drive.  Absolutely no signage to that effect, no barriers of any sort and an inviting set of wheel-tracks but she did her rant, insisting that we should have known the unadvertised proscription and we went on our way, chastened but indignant.  Why advertise a bird pond to visitors and then keep birders so far away that they couldn’t even identify the species out there?

We saw many ducks along that road and many beautiful white Whooper Swans but were only once able to stop to look at them.

The traffic is interesting here.  There are relatively few small sedans, but lots of big 4WDs, mainly Landcruisers like ours.  Almost half of them are towing a caravan or a camper-trailer – they are everywhere.  I am not sure where they camp because we have seen very few places in the wilds where it would be possible, and only a few crowded (sometimes not so crowded) campgrounds – far, far fewer than needed to accommodate the number of vans and motorhomes on the road.  There must be some large campgrounds well away from the main roads.

It was a pleasant drive with spectacular mountain views but we were almost always close to the sea in fiord after fiord with little of anything of consequence that I haven’t mentioned elsewhere – narrow roads, wonderful scenery, lots of birds, wildflowers everywhere, quaint farms and churches, wide open spaces. Idyllic and tranquil.  On a couple of occasions we stopped and got out of the car to absolute silence – no wind, no waves, no bird-calls, no cars – utter silence.  (Unheard of?)  Clean, clear and cleansing to the soul.

Our hotel was in Holmavik.  It was a pleasant little town on the edge of the fiord and we drove around and visited the supermarket for a few more commodities. The supermarket was also a diner and we purchased far more French/Icelandic fries than we could eat.  We ate in our room rather than go out again. Heather was not feeling brilliant but more of that tomorrow.

[500pxpopular]

Bolungarvik. Westfjords, Iceland. by haukursig

[youneedone2]

Bolungarvik. Westfjords, Iceland by Haukur Sigurdsson

[makedata]

Bolungarvik. Westfjords, Iceland. by haukursig // Bolungarvik, in the Westfjords of Iceland, doesn't see any sun from early December until late January. This photo is taken at 11am.

[davidstanleytravel]

Valagil Waterfall, 45 km south of Bolungarvik, Iceland, has cut a deep canyon into the volcanic hillside.

[kuuk3n]

the summer is upon us

[ibrahem]

Bolungarvik. Westfjords, Iceland. by haukursig http://bit.ly/2oYJMgn

[bigyack-com]

Warming Waters, Moving Fish: How Climate Change Is Reshaping Iceland

ISAFJORDUR, Iceland — Before it became a “Game of Thrones” location, before Justin Bieber stalked the trails of Fjadrargljufur, and before hordes of tourists descended upon this small island nation, there were the fish.“Fish,” said Gisli Palsson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Iceland, “made us rich.” The money Iceland earned from commercial fishing helped the island, which is about the size of Kentucky, become independent from Denmark in 1944. But warming waters associated with climate change are causing some fish to seek cooler waters elsewhere, beyond the reach of Icelandic fishermen. Ocean temperatures around Iceland have increased between 1.8 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years. For the past two seasons, Icelanders have not been able to harvest capelin, a type of smelt, as their numbers plummeted. The warmer waters mean that as some fish leave, causing financial disruption, other fish species arrive, triggering geopolitical conflicts. Worldwide, research shows the oceans are simmering. Since the middle of last century, the oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions. To beat the heat, fish are moving toward cooler waters nearer the planet’s two poles. Last year, the capelin fishery, the country’s second most economically important export fishery, was closed for the winter fishing season on the recommendation of Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, which cited a decline in fish populations it attributed to unusually warm waters. Capelin is caught and then sold both for direct consumption (its flavor is said to resemble herring), for fish meal and for its roe, or eggs, commonly called masago. In 2017 the country’s largest bank, Landsbankinn, valued the fishery at roughly $143 million. Last month, the research institute recommended keeping the capelin fishery closed for a second winter season. “They moved farther north where there are colder seas,” said Kari Thor Johannsson, who, like many Icelanders of a certain generation, fished on family boats when he was younger. These days you can find him, behind the counter of his fish store in Isafjordur. “For the first time last winter, we didn’t fish because the fish moved,” said Petur Birgisson, a fishing captain whose trawler is based out of Isafjordur. With 2,600 residents, it is the largest community in the Westfjords, a region that is still heavily invested in fishing. Over the years he has adjusted to a series of changes, including the development of a quota system that allows individuals and companies the right to catch, process and sell a predetermined amount of fish each year. But he can’t conceive of an Iceland without fish.If there aren’t fish, he said, “we can’t live in Iceland.”The concern is not just limited to capelin. Blue whiting is increasingly moving farther north and west into the waters near Greenland. And cod, which this year brought in record profits of $1 billion, feed on capelin. But Mr. Birgisson said the best place to fish for cod was where warmer ocean temperatures meet colder ocean temperatures, and that is increasingly moving north in keeping with global patterns.Different species of fish evolved to live in specific water temperatures, with some fish like sea bass requiring the temperate ocean climates like those found off the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, and tropical fish like the Spanish hogfish preferring warmer waters such as those in the Caribbean. But these days, fishermen are finding sea bass in Maine and the Spanish hog fish in North Carolina. And as the fish flee they are leaving some areas, like parts of the tropics, stripped of fish entirely.What’s more, fish “need more oxygen when the temperature is higher,” said Daniel Pauly, a professor of aquatic systems at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, but warmer water holds less oxygen than colder water. The fish are swimming for their lives, according to Jennifer Jacquet, an associate professor of environmental studies at N.Y.U. “They are moving in order to breathe,” she said.In colder climates, like Iceland, as fish like capelin head north other fish that were previously found farther south move into their waters. “Mackerel and monkfish used to be south of the country,” said Kari Thor Johannsson. “But now they are up here or west of the country where it used to be colder.”As fish cross political boundaries, that can create a platform for conflict.In the case of Atlantic mackerel, the fishery is comanaged by Norway, the Faroe Islands and the European Union. The mackerel’s arrival in significant numbers in Icelandic waters in 2005 shifted the relationship. “A lot of fisheries management is about allocation between groups. So everybody’s fighting for a piece of the pie,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.In the ensuing discussions Britain would accuse Iceland of stealing its fish, a Norwegian civil servant would accuse Iceland of making up its own rules, and all of the parties would accuse each other of varying degrees of fighting dirty.“It doesn’t just stay as a fisheries management conflict,” said Malin Pinsky, an assistant professor in the department of ecology, evolution and natural resources at Rutgers University.“In the Iceland case it also spilled over and became a trade war,” he said. “It affected international negotiations and seems to be part of the reason that Iceland decided not to join the European Union.”The negotiations between Norway, the Faroe Islands, the European Union and Iceland over mackerel never came to a consensus, partly because the fish migrated into waters where Iceland has exclusive fishing rights and the nation chose to unilaterally set its own quotas. This year it raised its mackerel quota by 30 percent, to 140,000 tons from 108,000 tons. At a meeting in October, the European Union and the two other countries criticized Iceland’s behavior, saying, “Such action, which has no scientific justification, undermines the efforts made by the European Union, Norway and the Faroe Islands to promote long-term sustainability of the stock.” Greenland and Russia, which are also setting unilateral mackerel quotas, were also criticized, but less forcefully. The rebukes are reminiscent of those that contributed to a series of conflicts, known as the cod wars, between Iceland and Britain from the late 1940s until 1976. The British conceded when Iceland threatened to withdraw from NATO and deprive the bloc of a then-critical ally.A study led by Sara Mitchell, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa, found that, since World War II, a quarter of militarized disputes between democracies have been over fisheries.So while fishery management problems have long existed, climate change is exacerbating conflicts. Many fisheries that weren’t shared in the past are now straddling borders as fish move. Dr. Pinksy is a co-author of a study that found that there will be roughly 35 percent more fisheries that straddle boundaries by 2060 if we fail to rein in emissions. “So now two countries have access to this population where in the past only one did, and what we’ve found is that we’re just not very good about starting to share,” Dr. Pinksy said. “I was in Dakar in West Africa and I said, ‘you know that your fish are moving toward Mauritania,’ which is north of Senegal in West Africa,” Dr. Pauly said. The response he received was: “‘Let’s catch them, let’s catch them before they get there.’ This was a naïve kind of response that you will find everywhere.”In the tropics, this issue is especially acute because, as fish head toward the poles, they aren’t replaced, creating a food vacuum. In some tropical countries, which emit a tiny fraction of greenhouse gases compared with countries farther north, fish provide as much as 70 percent of people’s nutrition according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. “My mom is from Ghana, my dad is from Nigeria, and I tell you that for many people along the coast the only animal protein they get to eat is fish — and the fish are moving,” said Rashid Sumaila, the director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia. Not only does this have huge consequences for the people living in those regions, he said, it also has global implications, because the lack of a critical food source may cause people to move.While Iceland is still able to fish in the wild, albeit for different species, fish farming seems an increasingly attractive option. In 2017, the country harvested 23,000 tons of farmed fish, according to government data, though fish farming also comes with environmental concerns.Fishing is “dangerous work — I don’t want my kids to be at sea,” said Saethor Atli Gislason, standing on his fishing boat in Bolungarvik, a town roughly 10 miles north of Isafjordur. While he still fishes in summer, his father works in a fish farm.“Fish farms are a good job,” he said.“We have to start fish farms because we cannot count on the sea,” echoed Petur Birgisson. Source link Read the full article

[stephencaulfield]

Lovely view of the town Bolungarvik nestled amongst the fjords from the Latrar Air Station, Westfjords, North-West Iceland. 🇮🇸 (at Latrar Air Station) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxkQQaGhsmg/?igshid=b38l4uc5ursn