June 29 – AT SEA, NOT Cruising Prince Christian Sound

a bit of night

CANADA!!!

Weather – 7º, cold, not pool or balcony weather…that is all

Steps – 5,755

Last night we actually had a bit of darkness/dusk. We’ve moved far enough south to actually have a night. We seem to talk as much about the light as we do about the weather around here.

Today we were supposed to be cruising through Prince Christian Sound, looking at the beautiful scenery. Didn't happen...too much ice. 

Despite my love of sea days, sailing in these temperatures doesn’t make for much outdoor time which is where we typically spend sea days. It seems like we have much more time in the cold than we typically do in the heat. In warm weather sea days, we usually wake up, roll out to the balcony, and let our room attendant do their business – I always feel like I need to make it easy for them to do their jobs. This cruise, I usually pop down to grab cappuccinos and a small breakfast to take back to the room, but there is absolutely no balcony time.

happy birthday BOY!

We spent the morning planning our next cruise.

Vodka hot chocolate...yum!

Actually our next, next cruise. We have been throwing around a few possibilities for a booked onboard cruise (there is a bit of a discount when you book onboard) so we finalized things after a bit of research.

A pre-lunch spritz with a bit of reading, then lunch, then shopping. I managed to use about half of our remaining onboard credit.

Boozy coffees capped off our afternoon. A nap soon followed.

Dinner tonight was at the ship’s French restaurant. We aren’t in love with this place but go for a change of pace and because we have a reservation. Dinner was good.

predinner wine

I tried calling my brother for his birthday, he must have been out partying, because he didn’t answer. I tried sitting on the balcony…despite being bundled with a champagne in hand I only lasted a few minutes. Happy birthday BOY! I'm sure you're reading this...right?!?

Stacey…comment wherever you’d like, I get all comments, messages etc. unless you send me a non-Apple text. I’m using an E-sim so I’m not using my usual phone/text number.

Lori…I had a vodka chocolate for you…good choice…YUM!

June 28 – AT SEA, Cruising the Denmark Strait

Weather – 2º, cold and blustery on the pool
deck…not my idea of cool by the pool!

Steps – 5,776 – not bad for a sea day

The captain has told us at least 2 times that there is a lot of ice around Greenland which may affect our cruising tomorrow and getting to port altogether. My theory is that he is setting us up to not be surprised when the plans are altered.

coffee menu

The “noon update from the bridge” came directly onto the speaker in our room, rather than the speakers in the cooridors and over the TV. This signaled that the news would be important. We learned what we suspected…we won’t be going to Paamiut or Qaqortoq in Greenland due to ice. We also won’t be cruising the Prince Christian Sound around Greenland. We are disappointed, but hardly surprised. These 2 ports were supposed to be tendered, not sure if that factored into the blowoff decision, or if we couldn’t get near these places at all. Now, we are spending the night in Nuuk which we weren’t initially supposed to do.
Disappointing but what can ya do? They’ve added tours for

coffee menu #2

the extra day, but none really appeal to us, so maybe we’ll explore the town on our own after we see it on the first day. Who knows. That’s cruising. In fact, in researching prior to the cruise we learned aht Greenland is often missed for one reason or other – makes me think what it must be like to live there. They’re giving us 10% future cruise credit, so making lemonade out of lemons…we’ll book another cruise.

pool menu

The rest of the day was spent napping, reading, eating, drinking, listening to a lecture about snow flakes, blogging, shopping. We are NOT shoppers. We have a significant amount of shipboard credit to spend because of these ports being blown off. We had booked excursions here that we paid extra for from our initial shopboard credits. OMG, we are going to have a hard time spending this. There is very little
we are interested in. I did buy one tube of foot cream; I don’t mind the stuff they have on board and I happened to have just run out at home.

more pool menu

Things got very foggy as the evening went on. By the time we went to bed the ship's horn was blowing every 3 minutes. Again...I'm glad we're far back in the ship, so the horn isn't too loud.

One thing I forgot to mention when we were in Akureyri was that to use the facilities we had to pay. I’m not sure if this is everywhere in Iceland, but at the lava fields and the falls we had to pay. These are like national parks, so maybe it’s just there. When we had lunch and bought beer, one visit was included with that. At the falls we bought a Christmas ornament and got no complimentary trip for that
. You go to a gate by the washrooms, tap your credit card and the gates open…$2 to pee!! I understand paying…I’ve paid plenty of times to go, but $2…wow!

June 27 – Isafjordur, Iceland

Vigur Island windmill

puffin!!

Weather – 5º, partly cloudy, foggy, occasional
sun, blustery

Steps – 16,336

Northness - 66º (Calgary - 51º)

Sunrise - NONE, sunset - NONE, hours of daylight 24!!!– ALL HOURS ARE DAYLIGHT!!!

According to my weather app, today’s forecast was for rain, in fact it said it was presently raining, but I poked my head out and didn’t get wet…so much for meteorology…I used my eyes this morning. It looked like it could rain, so I wore my rain footwear. I also saw and felt that it was cold…we bundled up accordingly. Real fee was hovered around 2º. I was glad I had my warm socks today! For some

guillemot

reason I didn’t wear my long johns in the

roosting duck

morning but put them on for the afternoon and was happy I did!

We started with a 2-hour walking tour of Isafjordur – a town of about 3,000 inhabitants, there were more people in town from the few cruise ships in today. Today’s group was once again…big. The groups have been surprisingly big this cruise…there are varying theories for this…covid took the guides, the cruise is pinching pennies…not sure who to believe. The big group wasn’t really a problem walking. We were able to stay up front with Viviana, our Italian guide, to hear her. She was really good…I’ve said it

more puffins

before, I’ll say it again…the guide makes the experience!

We really didn’t see anything too remarkable, but with Viviana’s narration, it was much more interesting. Most of what we learned was about daily life in Isafjordur.

We ended up at the town’s Islandic Museum for a taste of fish jerky – (definitely dry, not too fishy tasting, fine but meh) Brennivín – (Iceland's signature alcohol, flavored with caraway...like all of these national hooches…strong and burny. The star of the tasting was the

WOAH!

FERMENTED SHARK!!! I had heard of this Icelandic ‘delicacy’ and sort of wanted to try but was just a tad reluctant…no need…its bark was much more than its bite…

yet more puffins!

Chris tried too! It mostly tasted like fish with a tiny aftertaste of ammonia, had we not been told to notice the ammonia, I’m not sure if I would.

After the shark, we had time for a very quick lunch back at the boat, getting my long johns on and were back out for a tour of Vigur Island.

Vigur Island has 3 inhabitants (a couple who run, maintain and own the island and their 7-year-old.) The other inhabitants are many, many more birds! We got to the island via a 30 min ferry ride. Once on the island we walked us around the island hearing about and

guillemots

looking at the many, many birds. We saw endless puffins, eider ducks, guillemots and arctic terns.

boat with bird

The family of 3 make their living by harvesting eider duck down from their nests. Apparently, the ducks don’t mind this and this practice might actually be beneficial for the ducks.

One of the many things that was interesting was how we shielded ourselves from the protective arctic terns. Our path took us along the edge their nesting area. The guide gave each of us sticks about a metre long to hold against our heads to make us seem taller. Walking through their nesting area was nuts! There were

back to the ship

maybe 100 or 200 terns swooping, cawing and pooping. Chris got a splash of poop and the guy behind me on the path got dive bombed. The nests really were close to our path…I was able to get a pic of 2

sailing is chilly

eggs without being assaulted.

The tour ended with coffee and rhubarb ‘matrimonial cake’ rhubarb. This morning Viviana told us that rhubarb grows prolifically here – yup, we saw it everywhere.

The day ended on the balcony with me under a blanket, sipping an Irish coffee. The only disappointment of the trip so far has been the lack of balcony time. I understand why it’s been too cold and completely expected little balcony time, but I LOVE balcony time. Today I figured I could last a while, which I did until we started sailing, then it got windy, and I bailed.

swooping terns

Dinner was at the ship’s Italian restaurant, followed by a ABBA dance party…fun.

tern eggs

A note about daylight…today there is NO darkness. Where we currently are, there is NO sunset until July 1, 3 DAYS FROM NOW…NO SUNSET!!! WILD! It’s something to look outside at midnight, to see a daytime sky.

June 26 – Akureyri, Iceland

Weather

bubbling, gurgling mud

– 13º, so they say…I was HOT at a
few points. I definitely didn’t need to wear my cold-weather socks…they came off early in the day. There were many points throughout the day when all I needed on top was a long-sleeved t-shirt.

Steps – 12,665

Northness - 66º (Calgary - 51º)

Sunrise – 1:41, sunset 12:49, hours of daylight – 23hrs 8 min

Today’s visit to Iceland takes our country count to 82! Akureyri, where we are today is the first of 3 Iceland cities we will visit this trip.

 

Akureyri, Iceland's fifth biggest city - pop just under 20,000 is a town in northern Iceland.

 

Godafoss 

tasty!

So far, so good in the weather department. As we set off this morning it was 8º, with 13º
as the high…some clouds, but mostly sun.

 

Once again, as the theme of this cruise has been since
the beginning …NATURE. I wouldn’t call northern Iceland beautiful…Faroe was much more beautiful, but it was something to see.

 

The land everywhere shows evidence of former volcanic activity, former might not actually be accurate – we saw bubbling mud at one point today.

 

stream and bubbling mud

Stop #1 – BUGS, BUGS, BUGS…I had read about

tiny flowers poking out of the lava fields

the abundance of bugs in Iceland, and here they were. Although the guide called them mosquitoes the phone research, I quickly did on the bus said there were no mosquitoes on Iceland and the bugs were Midges. We did a bit of a nature walk/hike here, but mostly it was about the bugs!

more gurgling and spluttering

 

Stop #2 – Dimmuborgir where we saw volcanic structures and had lunch. A pathway

skál!

system has been carved out of the wilderness here. We walked a bit with our guide, took some pictures, had an $11 beer and then a delicious lunch of local river trout, carrot soup, potatoes, salad and local rye bread baked from the geothermal heat.

 

Stop #3 – Namaskard, this place was a barren field of geothermal pits…gurgling sulfur cauldrons and boiling mud pits. This place was wild. It stunk of sulfur, there was steam everywhere and you could hear the bubbling.

 

yule lads' hovel

Stop #4 was Godafoss or “Waterfall of the

lava formations

Gods”. This was a huge roaring waterfall.

 

No where was beautiful, but everywhere was something to never be forgotten. It was a full 8-hour day.

 

Lakes

The interwebs are not cooperating with my blogging endeavors!

I am being taken care of!

June 25 – AT SEA, Cruising the Norwegian Sea

ice water bath

official Bluenoses!

Weather – 10º, sunny skys

Steps – 7,776

Today was all about crossing the ARTIC CIRCLE!!! We actually will cross tonight around 1AM, but the ceremony marking the crossing was held in the morning.  We aren’t stepping onto land inside the Arctic Circle, but sailing will have to count as being here. The Bluenose ceremony was nearly identical to the one for crossing the equator, except for the weather.

Speaking of the weather…it was quite lovely. The pool deck, while open to the sky, is surrounded by glass walls that can heat things up on hot days, but that make things

pleasant when the temps are Artic-like.

Anyway…the Bluenose ceremony consisted of us having a ladle of ice-cold water poured on our heads, taking a shot of aquavit and having our noses coloured blue…silly, but fun! This is actually more civilized than the equator ceremony which is more of a submersion that a sprinkling.

Next, we were off to BINGO! Unfortunately, I kept my winless streak from the last time I played BINGO alive – Chris didn’t win either. BINGO was

Thor ushering us across

pretty well attended – there were 4 games, the last with a bonus, each pot being over $100. This is a good way of spending our ample ship-board credit.

All of this morning activity worked up our appetites, so we were off to the pool deck for lunch. We historically have avoided the pool deck buffet for lunch, but this ship has things a bit more spread out and a lot of the things you can get inside are available outside. It was packed inside today, so outside was nice. And really, it’s

BINGO photo bomber

not exactly outside…it’s mostly covered and has heat lamps.

Dinner tonight was with the ship’s cruise director, a guy from Vancouver and a couple from the US – interesting conversation.

The show was a Queen/Freddie Mercury tribute show…it was really good.

We turned the clocks before going to bed, which is for me the best of all nights!!

June 24 – Torshavn, Faroe Islands, Denmark

Faroe Islands have a distinct flag from Denmark

Weather – 11º, bits of fog, overcast, but NO
RAIN!!

Steps – 7, 255

Northness - 62º (Calgary - 51º)

Sunrise – 3:56, sunset – 10:28, hours of daylight – 18hrs 31min

Last night was a bumpy one! We had to make sure the bathroom and closet doors were closed tightly, otherwise they would have been slamming. We didn’t have trouble sleeping and feel fine this morning, I wonder how many others here didn’t sleep or are barfing today. The rough seas got us to picking up the pilot a bit later than expected, but this didn’t affect the tour times.

Gasadalur falls

We stayed in the room this morning, taking advantage of the sleep in. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure I won’t use the balcony much if at all for the rest of the cruise. A typical cruising morning in warmer weather would be spend outside, but not this cruise. It’s quite foggy with bits of sun this morning causing the horn to be blasted all morning. I guess we are far enough to the rear of the ship to not hear it too loudly. 

When researching this trip and learned that Tórshavn’s climate is described as ‘subpolar’ I was reminded that packing wouldn’t be the usual theme of what can I wear to stay the coolest. It wasn’t too

local bus beer

bad today, not as rainy as I expected. I think I’m getting myself psychologically prepared for terrible weather and when it’s OK, it seems better.

depicts a Danish lenged

Today we learn that Tórshavn means 'Thor's harbour’. It is the capital and largest city of the Faroe Islands. Population - 14,099. We also learn that The Faroe Islands are home to more sheep than people. I believe this…they were everywhere…big ones, little ones, an occasional ram, black ones, white ones. Once off the bus we could hear the bleating from the lambs.

multiply this by many, many!

Today’s tour is about village life on Vagar - one of the Faroes’ westernmost islands and waterfalls. To reach Vagar from Streymoy where the ship is docked, we drive through a three-mile-long tunnel beneath the sea – before 2002 you could only do this by ferry.

We visited the village Sandavágur and its Midvágur church where the guide shared stories and legends. We also visited Gasadalur, which perches at the edge of a seaside cliff. 

Lastly we visited Bøur, along the coast with many sod-roofed buildings with black-tarred wooden

Midvágur church

walls. Here we had tea and cake, while listening to the owner tell us how the hose we were in came to be. After the tea, we found ourselves a local beer...$10CAN!!! I guess that's whatcha get for how remote we are.

Today was a day to admire nature’s beauty throughout Vagar, with its waterfalls and rugged mountains. 

June 23 – Kirkwall, (Orkney Islands) Scotland

Weather – 14º, sunny…so far so good!

can everyday start this way??

Steps – 13,554

Sunrise – 3:56, sunset – 10:28, hours of daylight – 18hrs, 32min

Northness - 59º (Calgary - 51º)

A morning at sea let us sleep in once again. I could have slept longer (I continue to blame jet lag) but set an alarm. We wanted to get to the Sunday caviar breakfast. We must be heading in a slightly different direction because while the sun was up around 4, it didn’t directly shine into our room.

Ring of Brodgar

First tour of the cruise…Scotland. We’ve been to
Scotland a few times, but never to Orkney. We are prepared for cold rainy weather this trip and so far, we haven’t needed anything more than a long-sleeved shirt and pants. In fact, although I had a jacket and thick zippy, I only needed my long-sleeved t-shirt. Tomorrow’s looking rainy, but we’ll deal with that tomorrow. We completely lucked out with the weather today!

Orkney's coast

The Orkney Islands, is an archipelago

wasn't as cold as it looks

 off the north coast of Scotland with about 70 islands - 20 are inhabited. Orkney's biggest town is Kirkwall – pop. 10,000. The islands have been inhabited for at least 8,500 years. The ancientness of this place is what the tour today was about. 

Today we first visited Orkney’s pre-historic landmarks - Standing Stones of Stenness, four tall Neolithic slabs with sharply angled tops, next was the Ring of Brodgar – a huge ceremonial circle of standing stones from 5,000 years ago. We also visited Skara Brae, a village from the neolithic age.

On the way back, we drove along the coast of Scapa Flow, one of the world’s best-known stretches of sheltered water. Along the way the guide described

Skall manor house

reasons for its importance particularly during the wars and during Viking times.

further and further north

Before prepping for this vacation, I’d never heard of Scapa Flow. It is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, that played an important role in travel, trade and conflict throughout the
centuries. Vikings anchored their ships in Scapa Flow more than a thousand years ago. It was the UK's chief naval base during the WWI and WW2 - it was closed in 1956.

Scapa Flow is also an important oil port. Ok…end of today’s lesson.

Pacific Rim - tonight's dinner

Dinner was at Pacific Rim. This is one of the ship’s 3 reservation required restaurants and it completely new to us as it isn’t on any of the other Regent boats we’ve been on. It was good, but no better than the  main dining room. As is obvious from the name, the food is Asian. I actually happened to have an

Skara Brae village

Asian Salmon last night; tonight was Asian start to
finish, including sake. We may try to get another reservation into here before the end of the cruise.

The captain warned us of rough seas tonight…yup, he was right. I wanted to try to sleep to the sound of the waves, but the door wouldn’t stay open and kept slamming shut…maybe tomorrow.