This is not a travelogue

This is going to be about Iceland, but I find after I’ve been to a place if I try to reconstruct a trip day by day and place by place, I soon lose interest. I’ll provide a map and some context. Mainly though, I’ve grouped the experiences and photos thematically. (How very English-teacherly of me.) A word of warning: if photos of birds are disturbing to you don't go any further.

I’ve already covered Reykjavik and the Faroes, so I’ll start back at Reykjavik where we caught the ship. How we were to make the transfer from the airport to the ship wasn’t exactly clear but because Richard and I had been from the airport to downtown Reykjavik before, we knew where to get the buses. One person from our Faroe trip stayed at the airport to board a flight and the rest of us got our luggage and caught a bus into the city. We had the name of the hotel where the Adventure Canada group stayed so we headed there with our luggage. The person on the desk kindly let us store our luggage until we found out what was up.

Ocean Endeavour, Old Harbour, Reykjavik 

In the meantime, we had lunch with friends we met on last year’s trip and who were on the Faroes with us. We managed to confirm that the ship was going to be moored in the old harbour and figured the Ocean Endeavour would be pretty hard to miss once it was in. By the time we finished lunch, said goodbye to our friends and made our way down the hill, the Ocean Endeavour was moored and we were able to check in. A bonus was that other friends from the Faroe tour had arranged to have our luggage brought down from the hotel! Thank you Christine, Donna, and Clayton! We thought we’d have to go back up the hill and get our own luggage. We then had some time to wander around. 

Richard at the bottom of Thufa

We climbed up Thufa, an art installation that is a manufactured perfectly rounded hill covered in grass with a path of stones that spirals its way to the top. I tried to climb to the top when we were first in Reykjavik, but the wind was pretty stiff, and I was concerned about losing my balance. This time I made it to the top where there is a replica of a fish-drying shed complete with dried fish.  

Rescue exercises

A woman from Rekjavik explained that the mound was a sculpture. She also told us that the helicopter and ship we saw farther out in the harbour were doing rescue drills.  Every person who goes to sea on a ship must be trained in rescue. She says the safety record of the fishermen of Iceland is very good. We watched the helicopter maneuvers for a while before making our way back to the ship to set off on our circumnavigation of Iceland. This is the point at which my chronological account stops.

One of the questions I get most often is, ‘What was your favourite part?’ My favourite part of the Iceland trip was the birds. There were always birds around the ship and we visited some great bird-spotting locations. After being introduced to Arctic terns in Reykjavik, we visited one of the biggest colonies in Iceland on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. 

Road through the terns

The colony is divided by a road and the terns were not terribly amused by people and cars moving through their territory. We tried to stay back and watch them until our hiking group took to the roadway. The terns dove and scolded, and many people held things above their heads to give the terns a higher target to aim at. I was probably naïve, but I had my Tilley hat on and reasoned that if a tern did strike me on the head it wouldn’t do too much damage through the hat. One actually touched Richard on the head, but I was lucky. I like to think that talking to them and telling them that they were beautiful and that I wasn’t going to hurt them or their babies helped. As I say, probably just naïve.  We heard a story later of a man who got a pretty good gash from a disgruntled tern through his hat. I was able to watch a chick in the grass while one of the parents swooped in to feed it. I had a blast trying to get photos of the fast-moving terns. I think that’s the day I came home with over 1000 photos. I found my new camera quite delightful to use, although I still need lots of practice to get good shots of birds.

Tern and chick

Tern hovering

One of the things that fascinated me was how the terns can hover in mid-air and then swoop down and come up with a small fish. They are stunning birds with their white and black feathers and their orange beaks and it’s a toss-up as to whether they or the puffins were my favourites. We visited another breeding colony in a private nature reserve that we had to reach via two buses. The first was a normal passenger bus and the second was a special 4X4 bus that drove us through 3 rivers.  I would have called them creeks, but they are probably quite a bit more spectacular when there has been a good rain. At any rate, the banks were steep, and the driver didn’t dare stop once in the water or he would get stuck.

Coming in for a landing

The same nature preserve also harboured puffins. I got some good photos of puffins in the Faroes and was delighted with the chance to see more.  One little guy took up a position on a rock slightly below me and stayed there for quite a while. Again, I need a lot of practice in capturing images of birds, but I had a good deal of fun trying and I got one amusing shot of a puffin landing. 
Most of the ones I got of them in flight featured their butts, otherwise dubbed ‘go-away birds.’

Heading for the burrow

My photogenic friend

Puffins are great in the water but not so good in the air. I heard them referred to as ‘flying footballs’ and that’s pretty much what they look like. Sort of like the bumble-bee, they shouldn’t be able to fly but they do. It’s difficult for them to get airborne, especially on the water. The process involves frantic flapping of their wings and running along the surface of the water until they have sufficient lift to take off.  I watched several get almost airborne only to be smacked head-on by a wave. It looked funny from my vantage point, but I couldn’t help wondering how often it happens to any given individual. Because the ship was moving, I wasn’t able to see how the birds reacted to the waves. Since they are expert divers, I assumed the waves merely washed over them and they tried again for a launch.

Fulmar

One evening I watched out the porthole as a series of fulmars flew past just above the water. I couldn’t tell if it was the same group circling the ship or if there was a large contingent passing low near the water. I loved watching as the birds zipped alongside the ship and then cut in front of the bow and veered upward.

Phalarope

We also saw phalaropes, red-throated loons, gannets and eider ducks. Eider down is the best down insulation available and farmers keep close track of the nests. They take the eggs out very briefly and remove some of the down lining before returning the eggs. There are strict rules as to how much down they can take from the nests while the birds are in residence. Once the chicks have fledged farmers go back and take the remaining down from the nests. It’s labour-intensive work which helps me understand the high cost of down clothing. The farmers take their responsibility for the ducks very seriously and the ducks return year after year to the same spots.

Despite the thousands of bird photos I took, I never tired of watching them or of trying to capture them with my camera. It makes me think that perhaps I should look at a birding trip. Just another possibility for the bucket list.