#bunarfoss

[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……