On Saturday we had a sea day, sailing north around the northern side of Iceland. We crossed the artic circle, so Nancy and I are now officially members of the Order of the Blue Nose society.
On Sunday we tendered into the small town of Isafjordur Iceland. The town has a population of about 1500, so here were the 2100 of us strolling up and down the eight block main street on a Sunday morning. It made quite a sight for us, let alone the people driving to church. Many of the shops, café’s and even the library opened up for us. It was a pleasant little visit. The photo’s show Nancy under the town sign hung from some whale bones, a statue of fisherman, and the snow we could see from our ship on the hills around the town from last winter.
On Monday we docked at Reykjavik Iceland. We took an 8 1/2 hour tour called the Golden Circle and Horse Show. Our first stop was a location where the European and North American tectonic plates meet. We walked down the gap, where the two sides are moving apart at a rate of approximately 2 centimeters a year. In the first two photos, the cliffs on the left are on the North American plate and the ones on the right are on the European plate. The third photo is looking back, so the sides are reversed. As the bulk of Iceland is on the European plate, it is considered part of Europe. Greenland, is considered part of North America, as it is on that tectonic plate.
We then went to the Gullfoss waterfall. It was really impressive. In the second photo you can see the trail that goes down beside the falls and the little dots are people.
We then went to a hot springs area with a few geysers. One geyser shoots up about 50-60 feet high, and goes off about every five minutes. But it is very fast, lasting only a couple of seconds at a time.
Then we were off to a small, family run horse show. It was kind of corny, but they showed the Icelandic Horses, which is a specific breed. No outside horses have been introduced in Iceland for 1000 years. If one of the horses is taken off the island, it can not return. We loved the horses bangs. The horses have five different paces (trot, canter, etc.), where all other horses only have three or four.
Our final stop for the day was the main power station for Reykjavik. They capture steam and very hot water from about 40 wells. They use the steam to drive the turbines to generate electricity. They use the hot water to heat fresh water for the city. They heat it to 80 degrees C. and pipe it to the city where it is used to heat the houses and and for hot water. The water used to heat the houses is recirculated back to the plant, under the main streets and sidewalks, so they are warm enough to melt any snow that lands on them (amazingly they don’t get a lot of snow in Reykjavik).
We were the last bus back to the ship, about 15 minutes past the all aboard, and the gangplank was removed before we had time to walk to our cabin.
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