British Isles & Iceland – Day 9 can be found here.
We woke at around 7 am this morning, grateful for the chance to sleep in. We had a leisurely breakfast in the Restaurant, then went back to our room to start packing (boo!) and to get ready for our rib boat safari.
Food blogging tip – if you once again forget to take a picture of your food until after you’ve started eating it, opt for an artistic close up
Eggs over medium and a hash brown
It can be a bit of a wait for a hand-made cappuccino in the Restaurant – but they’re worth it.
However, we noticed that the pool had been closed – related to the extent of the swells, perhaps? It proved to foreshadow what was yet to come – our planned tour, the rib safari of Heimaey, was cancelled due to the severity of the seas.
No big deal, we figured, as there was a beautiful swimming pool in the area that we could take in instead. But then, the second announcement – the seas were so severe that zodiacs themselves would not be able to make the trip.
(You could tell that announcer from Expeditions was feeling a bit flustered by the sudden change as he announced an impromptu lecture by Dr. Zhivago, rather than the actual guest lecturer – Dr. Zavagno.)
So, no trip to Vestmannaeyar.
The good news – We had time to fill out the survey, write a letter to the Hotel Director, and pack our bags.
The bad news – That’s all done, and it is only 10:30 am.
So, what happens next? Will we head to another surprise location akin to the Shiant Isles, or will this be the end of our expedition cruise?
hen last we’d left off, we were left wondering whether we would be visiting the island of Heimaey.
The answer: No, we would not be.
Despite being anchored in a relatively sheltered area, conditions near the Silver Cloud were already less than ideal.
And what were the seas like outside of the sheltered area?
Like this:
Expedition leader Colin tries his very best to find a way to get the guests of the Silver Cloud onto Heimaey – but it was not meant to be
This is what ‘expedition country’ looks like – wild and unpredictable. And we can only be grateful that we were able to visit as many stops as we did. As already noted, many of our fellow guests had attempted to visit St. Kilda on multiple occasions before they finally landed.
So, what to do on an impromptu sea day? Well, we considered taking the kids swimming, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option either:
Apparently, this is the result when swells are over 1.5 metres high – which they were for a significant portion of the previous night.
But we had a lovely view of the Island of Heimaey, and we managed to get in some laps of the walking track. Us adults had some last-minute administrivia that we needed to sort out, and the kids were happy enough to just have a day to enjoy the ship’s routine – enjoying delicious meals, looking out through the windows of the observation lounge with a good book and a hot chocolate, chatting with members of the expedition team.
And we got to cruise past Surtsey Island. Surtsey is quite special in that it was only formed in 1963, as the result of a volcanic eruption. It began to erode almost immediately after the eruption ended in 1967 and more than half the original island has already vanished into the ocean. It’s expected to disappear entirely by around the year 2100. More on all of that here – Fifty year old island Surtsey is disappearing gradually | Icelandmag
Not an ideal view of Surtsey, but pretty good considering there were even small amounts of snow and hail coming down while we were cruising past
The Dream Team then took in one final round of trivia – our best round yet with 18/20, but still not good enough to place in the top 3 – and then my son went to redeem his prize points. He managed to get his much-desired T-shirt, as well as some key-chain lotion bottles and holders that he and his sister are planning to use to transport Lego mini-figures. Even after those redemptions, he ended up with some 200 prize points remaining – so we’ll have to hang onto those for a future cruise.
After that, we went to see the expedition recap and watch the cruise video. Which was absolutely incredible, and which is an absolutely massive file – so I’d like to post it at some point, but it may take a while before I’ll have sufficient internet access.
Then we were off to La Terrazza for one last delicious meal before we land in Reykjavik. I was surprised to see how much the menu had changed since the last time we had dinner there:
My continued attempts at artistic photography by cropping away partially eaten items. But it was a delicious striploin.
My wife’s delicious bacon gnocchi
A fantastic tiramisu
One of the servers also managed to convince us – yes, me included – that the table lanterns changed colour via voice command. In reality, he was using a remote in his pocket to change the colour. We then looked quite silly as we shouted “Green!” into the lanterns again and again without result.
All in good fun…
Then it was time to head back to our room and pack up our bags.
A bit of an anticlimactic ending, isn’t it?
Except…
It’s not the ending.
We are continuing to Greenland.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Changeover Chronicles:
Check out the British Isles & Iceland video by Silversea here.
Continue reading British Isles & Iceland – Day 11 here.