Follow our journey on this map.

Day 18 found us circling Iceland in the reverse order we just finished. We’re picking up some excursions that we didn’t hit the first time. In several ports, we’re just going to wander around the streets and see what we see. The villages we have been/will be visiting are each unique because they are so removed from neighboring villages thanks to the fjords. Iceland’s population is about 348,000 with about 220,000 living in the Reykjavik area.

Today we got into port about 11AM and headed right out to Vigor Island. Vigor is a very small island with 3 permanent residents (husband/wife/6-yr old). In the summer the population swells to 7 with the addition of college biology students. The island is a nesting area for between 100,000 and 400,000 puffins each year.

We certainly saw puffins but we couldn’t get close to them because of the active nesting that is occurring. The weather over the last several weeks has been really tough on the birds (see early day photos in this blog) and they are using this good weather to get some rest.

There were also a very large number of arctic terns that were nesting. The males are very protective and will attack the top of any predator. So, a bunch of tourists wandering through their colony certainly present as predators. We had to walk with sticks held vertically above our heads to distract the birds. It was really something to experience. Check out the video.

The final photo below shows what it looks like here at 10:35 PM. The sunset is after midnight with sunrise occurring before 3AM. It never gets really dark. Our circadian rhythm is WAY off!