Travel in Fire and Ice - Day 10 Westman Islands

It is our final full day aboard the Silver Moon.

We had to be up early for our excursion in the Westman Islands. We anchored in the morning.  I am accustomed to hearing the anchor drop during my morning workout now. As usual, we arrived to see stunning landscapes of land masses formed by volcanic activity.

We tendered to the port early in the morning.  Our tour was of a an area called The Pompeii of the North in the town of Heimeay.  In 1973 a volcano erupted and buried the town and also threatened to block access to the harbor - the town’s livelihood.

Before we visited the volcano site, we visited a popular bird watching spot. Here I was able to see puffins after giving up on the idea of ever seeing any.

We had some beautiful views of the bays while walking up there.  The sheep are as common in Westman as they are in the rest of Iceland.

 

I took photos with my phone and only managed to grab a few murky shots of them in flight.  Kevin has the good camera and had some real photos.

I had a chance to sample one of Iceland’s most famous delicacies (which I declined). Our guide had some cubes of fermented shark for anyone willing to taste them. He swore they taste better than they smell, but that didn’t mean much considering how horrible they smelled. I passed. A few crazy members of our group tried them, including a curious child,

We went to the lava fields from there.  We went to the spot where the lava was threatening to spill into the harbor.  It took many boats who used pumps and hoses to cool the lava and stop it in its tracks.

Our final stop was at a museum that was built around the ruins of one of the buried houses.  We heard some first hand accounts of the eruption and learned about the evacuation. It had been bad weather for fishing the day before, so the fishing boats were all in the harbor. This was fortunate as it gave residents a way to evacuate quickly.

We tendered back to the ship right before lunch.  We lucked out and saw a few more puffins in the water during the ride.  We returned to our room to see the cabin steward had pulled our suitcases out from under the bed in preparation for packing up.  We had a lot of laundry to do, so that’s how we spent much of our afternoon. I made the day go better by finishing the bottle of wine in my minibar.

In case you were wondering, I had a tasty cheeseburger and a rum runner at the pool grill for lunch.

I also had a final spa visit. I noticed earlier in the week my pedicure was looking tired.  I couldn’t get one on the schedule until today.  It’s too late for the cruise, but I will have an nice pedicure for the send half of my vacation. (I won’t take photos because there are far too many photos of people’s feet on the internet as it is).

The whole family met for dinner at Atlantide one last time.  

My final meal?

A mixed vegetable salad with mozzarella.

Tomato soup with mini meatballs.

Green curry chicken.

Chocolate gelato.

We disembark in the morning.  Vacation isn’t quite over yet as we will be hanging out for the day in Reykjavik, so there will be one more post.