After a night sailing through the pack ice and experiencing some truly spectacular polar bear sightings we started our journey to Iceland. Traveling from our landing site in Rømor, Greenland where we spent yesterday afternoon to Vigur, Iceland, we will cover 312.9 nautical miles. Today has been spent sailing through the open sea, which has brought us into some rougher water then we have previously been experiencing on this expedition. With wind speeds of 30-32 knots and swells of 4-5 meters we have had a bit of rocking on the ship today, to which the crew offered ginger sweets and put up ropes to help us maintain our balance.
Today’s sailing has offered us many fulmar, kittiwake, and Brûnich guillemot sightings for those on the bridge and the few brave people on the outer decks. It has also afforded us the opportunity to hear some great lectures from our National Geographic photographer and our Global Perspectives Guest Speaker. Guests were able to join tours of the galley and provisions storage area led by our head chef and hotel manager. A very interesting behind the scenes look into all the work that goes into the wonderful food onboard.
Shortly before recap we began to see the geography of Iceland off the port side of the ship and have officially left the Arctic Circle! We sailed into one of Iceland’s fjords, a sheltered area, to anchor for the night. During tonight’s recap we saw a superb preview from the video chronicler of the voyage and after dinner we enjoyed a performance by the crew band, the “Spice Boys”. We danced until the sun went down, experiencing our first sunset in two weeks.
