Day 11 - 08/13/22 - Akureyri, Iceland

 Today in Akureyri, we did a private excursion with Star Travel organized by a fellow passenger, Jan Day. We met up in the Dutch Café just before 8am and the Hotel General Manager, René, let us go a few minutes before the general announcement that the ship had been cleared and we were free to disembark the ship.  We quickly left the ship and found our guide.  He separated us in two groups: those who wanted the thermal pool experience ($28US per person) and those who didn't.  Our excursion group wanted the thermal pool experience.   With 13 guests and Thomas took us out to Lake Myvatn & Godafoss Falls and much more in a very nice Mercedes van.  It's about a 45 minute drive out there and all the other features are nearby.  Those items included Skútustaõagigar (pseudo craters), Dimmuborgir (lava formations where trolls allegedly live), Hverarönd in Námaskarò (hot springs and steam vents), and a nice soak in the Thermal pools at Jardbödin.  

 

What really struck us as the day progressed was how green it is and the large amount of farming.

 

As we got in a long line to reboard the ship, I saw the hotel general manager standing in the receiving line.  I told him I wanted to show him a picture.  I found the screenshot of the tender track in the fog at Red Bay.  He was impressed and took a picture of it.  I mentioned that another guest received chocolate for their inconvenience, but we received none. He took our room number, and it was there after dinner!

 

Back onboard, we tried Sel de Mer for the first time and it was wonderful but pricey even after our 25% loyalty discount. There were only 3 guests in there during most of our dining time.

 

We then went to the reprise Cantaré performance of 'Timeless'  before going up to the Crows Nest to watch the sailing.  Up there we met a couple from Nebraska, Tim & Linda, and we showed them our location on our Pocket Earth Pro App and talked a lot about cruising.  They boarded the Volendam on January 5, 2020 just after we disembarked from our 44 day Amazon & Caribbean cruise.  We also learned that there is a call list for those who wanted to see the Northern Lights if they appear.  They agreed to call us if they were called.

 

I should note that we crossed over the Arctic Circle last night (got the certificate to prove it) and we'll do so again tonight as we make our way around the NE corner of Iceland on our circumnavigation of it. We've now crossed over all five major global  latitude markers: Arctic Circle, Equator, Antarctic Circle, Tropic of Cancer, and Tropic of Capricorn. 

 

Today was another great day; we're looking forward to a canyon tour tomorrow. And we joke to each other: "Not another waterfall!"

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