Monday, 17 September. This was a day at sea, and we were happy to have a free day after the last three busy days. After breakfast in the Horizon Court, we went to an hour lecture on Reykjavik at 10:00. The seas were rough all day and the ship was running late. We got in a lot of reading, and I got to the gym in the afternoon. Dinner was formal this evening, and at 9:15 we went to the Explorer Lounge to see a male vocalist/impressionist. At bedtime, we set our clocks back an hour (2nd of 6).

Tuesday, 18 September. The seas were not as rough anymore when we got up about 7:40. (Remember, we'd gained an hour during the night.) We had a leisurely breakfast in the DaVinci dining room. A little after 11:00 we spotted Iceland. As we approached Reykjavik, we could see snow on Mt. Esja, flanking the harbor.


The ship docked about 12:45. It was nice and sunny with temperatures in the forties. We had pizza for lunch on the Lido deck just outside our room. Afterwards the weather was pleasant enough for us to sit on our balcony for an hour before leaving for our shore excursion.
 

Viking restaurant

Leaving the lake, we drove back to the waterfront, passing the Harpa (Concert Hall and Conference Center, 2011), and turned down the coast road (Saebraut). We passed the Sun Voyager (1990), an interesting sculpture that looked to me like a stylized Viking boat. We also went by the former French Consulate building where Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev held their summit meeting in 1986.


As we drove, the guide described the geological features of Iceland, situated directly on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet. The friction between them created the many volcanoes that formed the island. This makes Iceland one of the most active volcanic regions on Earth. About a third of all the lava erupted since 1500 A.D. was in Iceland. On average, a volcano erupts about every 5 years. In the 20th century, eleven different volcanoes in Iceland erupted, many of them multiple times (e.g., Mt Hekla erupted four times).

The friction between the plates also produces a great amount of heat below the surface. Iceland has done a great job of harnessing this heat both for heating purposes and to produce electricity. She gave as an example a large aluminum factory in nearby Straumsvik, built there to take advantage of the cheap geothermal electricity, even though the bauxite ore it processes comes all the way from Australia. Notwithstanding all this geothermal activity, that is not what gives Iceland its relatively mild climate. Rather it is the Gulf Stream that warms the waters around Iceland.

As we looked out at the landscape, there was gray basalt (from lava) everywhere. Early on our ride through Reykjavik, I wrote in my notes that most of basalt was without vegetation. Hours later, as our bus traveled around the island, I found that wasn't the case. Eventually we saw plentiful trees, shrubs, grassy expanses, and flowers.

We left the city and drove south on R42 down the Reykjanes Peninsula. We had been driving in very flat terrain, but shortly after 3:00 we turned onto a secondary road that took us into a stretch of low, barren hills. After a while, we stopped to see Kleifarvatn Lake, a long lake among the hills. It was formed as ground water filled craters left by the explosion of overheated ground water.


Back on the road, we soon turned east on R427 along Iceland's south coast. It was very desolate for the most part, miles of lava fields, not a tree in sight, very flat where we were driving, but with numerous small barren mountains in the distance. Of course the Atlantic was on our right.


As we traveled east, we eventually began seeing signs of human habitation. There was an occasional farm in the distance, fields under cultivation, and fences, a sure sign of civilization. As we went on, we saw several groups of Icelandic horses grazing in the fields. (This is a distinct breed with no infusion from elsewhere for more than a thousand years.)


Early in the drive on the coast road, we could see two snow-covered peaks in the far distance. The one on the left, the seemingly larger one (because it was closer), was Mt. Hekla (4,900 ft.), one of Iceland's most active volcanoes. The one on the right, near the coast, was the Myrdalsjokull, a huge icecap that covers the very dangerous volcano Katia. (Myrdalsjokull is immediately beyond Eyjafjallajokull, whose eruptions in April 2010 caused serious disruptions to air travel across western and northern Europe. We couldn't see Eyjafjallajokull, though, even though it was nearer, because its image did not stand out from that of the much larger Myrdalsjokull directly behind it.)

Fishing village of Stokkseyr Iron house with Icelandic horses

 
We got to the restaurant in Eyarbakki at 5:00 for our meal. It included lobster tail, boiled potatoes, carrots, spicy couscous, and  a dessert. The lobster tails were surprisingly small, about the size of a human finger. But they were good, and there were plenty of them. The whole meal was served family-style, and the serving dishes were replenished promptly.


For my part, I was disappointed with the visit to the villages. After the long drive to get there, we drove almost directly to the restaurant, so we didn't see that much of the villages. What we did see was not very "quaint." Incidentally, Litla-Hraun, the largest and most notorious prison in Iceland, is located just outside Eyarbakki.

After we left Eyarbakki at about 6:00, our guide called our attention to a small island in the Atlantic to the south. This was Surtsey, formed by volcanic eruptions (1963-1967). It got to be about a square mile in size but has been eroding since the eruptions stopped. There are many such islands around Iceland, and most of them eventually are swallowed up by the sea.