Heimaey, Westman Islands, Iceland

Paul had a short callout for fog duty during the night, but it was short-lived, and he was back just over half an hour later.

The winds have been stronger overnight and seas rougher, too, so we have been rocking and rolling a bit.

Once we reached the narrow but stunning entrance into Heimaey this morning, we were sheltered.

Unfortunately, it was raining on arrival, and it was pretty much like that all day. Sometimes a light drizzle, sometimes relentless rain.

While there was a light drizzle, we decided to get off the ship for a walk and followed a coastal path for quite a while. The path took us through lava fields, and at one point, the path disappeared due to a dirt road construction to the sea. The sides of the road were too steep to climb down, so we managed to find an alternative route down. When we found the track on the other side of the road, it was steep, and the loose lava was tricky to climb up. We made it, though, and continued following the path through the lava fields until we reached a tarred road.

We could follow the road back into town or visit a volcano or follow tracks back to town. Despite rain gear, we were wet - the quality of the rain trousers are not good, and our trousers started to feel damp due to leaks through the rain trousers. My hiking shoes and socks were soaked through, too. The steepness of the volcano track and the relentless rain made us rethink about the rest of the walk. We decided to follow tracks to town. Unfortunately, quarrying had covered the paths that we were meant to follow, so we had to navigate our way across it until we hit a dirt road that that we would have met up with in the end. We followed it in the pouring rain and were glad we had chosen not to climb up to the volcano - visibility would have been severely limited at the top due to rain.

The dirt road ended, and we followed a track back to town. No sooner had we got into town, the rain eased to a light drizzle. Sod's law!

We made our way back to the ship, my hiking shoes wheezing with every step.

It was good to get back on board the ship to dry off. Our clothes are in a warm wardrobe with a heater in it, drying off now.

Departure on the way out of port was pretty as we sailed back out of the narrow entrance into open waters.

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