Today, after one week of the cruise gone (doesn't time fly), we are docked at Isafjord in the north west corner of Iceland, (satellite image of where we docked in Isafjord Harbour).

This will be our second bird watching excursion, "Off the Beaten Track" on Vigur Island.   Although it is not exclusively bird watching, we hope to have another chance to see Puffins, surely everyone's favourite bird.

HAL's excursion description "Leave Ísafjördur harbour by boat to sail the large Djupfjord to the island of Vigur. This island offers magnificent bird life including puffins, eider ducks and arctic terns. Here, the farmers live off the land and by harvesting the down of the eider ducks. Vigur is like a time warp. Its 10 friendly inhabitants welcome you with their relaxed easy, manner. A leisurely walk around the island gives you an opportunity to see an abundance of birds in their natural habitat. A farmer’s family will serve refreshments in a mid-19th-century house — the perfect way to complete your visit, before returning to Ísafjördur. Notes: Many species of birds migrate from Vigur starting in mid-August. Bird-sightings may be limited. There is a short walk (approximately 200 yards) from the pier to where the boat to Vigur is docked. You must dress warmly in layers for this tour; wear a hat, sturdy shoes and a waterproof/windproof jacket. Dress in layers and bring waterproof outerwear."

Our excursion wasn't until the afternoon, so we had the morning to look around the town.   The Bank Holiday didn't help much as there was not much open and as the town was in walking distance there was no shuttle. However we did do some photography.   It looked as though there had been a bit of a party the previous night with some empty bottles lying around outside the cafe which were being cleared away.   Down by the harbour we met a chap also sweeping up and stopped to chat.   It turned out he was the harbour master and also the port pilot and had brought us in this morning.   They do keep their town tidy as even after the party it was still tidier than it is around our town centre.   You can see how clean the place is in this shot of an interesting building, that I didn't think to find out what it was.   Google Earth doesn't help as it shows two buildings on this site, the police station and a bank.   These seem to have been replaced by a modern single building which can be seen in one of the local photographs, but is not identified.   I just thought it would make a good 3D shot.   I have processed this two ways, as some 3D glasses are Red/Green and some are Red/Blue.

After lunch we collected together at the assembly point "Showroom at Sea" to get our numbered stickers and HAL pole carrier and, when everyone was ready, we set off like a school crocodile for the boat.   This was in the little harbour just in front of where we were docked, so not far at all.   It was quite a popular excursion as we had two boatfuls, and we were soon speeding away from the Prinsendam, left guarding the dock.   The boat was a small cabin cruiser with a cockpit at the back, most people wanted to be inside so I was lucky to be outside and I could do bird watching on the way to the island.   It isn't easy to bird watch from a moving small craft as it is near impossible to keep the binoculars steady and the fast boat scares them, so they all scatter away from the boat.   I still managed to see some puffins and black guillemots and got used to telling them apart.   They are both little stocky birds with rapid beating wings, the puffins have white faces and the black guillemots have white wing patches which flash as they fly.

We arrived at the jetty and disembarked.   It was a glorious sunshine day as you can see in this shot taken from the jetty looking towards the island.   The little building on the top of the rocks is a windmill, still under construction, believed to be the only one in Iceland.   We were all just assembling together on the jetty prior to our tour, when someone asked the guide what all the white stuff was on the top of the mountains.   Maybe he thought it was guana and maybe he is not used to seeing snow, or perhaps the splendid weather had just fooled him into forgetting we were just outside the rim of the arctic circle.  It was amazing just how warm it was.   I would have liked to have stayed a couple of days on that island.

The first thing that impressed me when we arrived was that the bay was full of birds as we approached the jetty, and they did not scuttle away, we had to nose gently through them to get to the landing stage.   As we walked up the edge of the island we could see that the bay on the other side was also full of birds just swimming about and enjoying themselves.   The timing here was ideal, the pufflings were mostly fledged and now in the water, though as some puffins still had beakfuls of sand eels there must have been a few still in their burrows.   Another two weeks and they could all be gone, off out to sea where they over winter.   The only problem with this excursion is that anyone who had never been bird watching before would come away thinking that bird watching is easy.   I had never seen birds in such numbers so close before, bird watching is not normally so easy in the open, usually dots in the distance that are hard to identify even with a good telescope.   If you go to a reserve, where they have bird hides, things are better.

We had a leisurely stroll round the lower part of the island with plenty of time to stop and look at the birds and take photographs.   The guide was well trained on the birds of interest, but was not an experienced bird watcher as, when I asked if the skuas were a problem in the breeding season, she said "We don't get skuas around here, perhaps in the main fjords".   "That's one there" I said, pointing to a great skua circling round like a bird of prey, looking for an easy meal.   When we got back to the beach we were shown the Eider Hotel, a wall where holes had been left at the bottom for the ducks to nest in.   The eider ducks line their nests with soft under feathers which they pluck from their breasts.   Each day, when the ducklings are hatching, the farmer reaches in and takes a few of these down feathers which the duck replaces.   The ducks are not disturbed by this, they seem to know that the farmer protects them and keeps predators off the island.   They perhaps donate the down as a sort of rent.   When the ducklings are all hatched, the duck abandons the nest, taking the ducklings off to the water for safety, and the farmer takes the remaining down.   Nearly all their harvest goes off to Germany to be made into eiderdowns (duvets).   Some of the nest holes are used by black guillemots, but these are tolerated, even though they reduce the yield.   We had refreshments at the farmhouse and an opportunity to send a card from the post office.   We then returned to our boats and regretfully back to ship after a very enjoyable day.   Top marks for this excursion, though again it would not have been 110% if the weather had been bad.

Captain Albert's Blog: no entry for Isafjord, Iceland.