Haimaey, Iceland

We arrived at Heimaey at around 7am with a view to doing scenic zodiac cruising off the island and some small islands close by. Unfortunately, the winds were too strong to set the zodiacs in the water, so there was a change of plan.

The ship itself did a bit of scenic cruising along the island coastline, and the strong powerful camera on board panned to the cliffs so we could see puffins and other birds nesting on the cliffs. The cliffs themselves were impressive.

We were due to dock at a different pier because another cruise ship was going to be in port. They cancelled because the wind was too strong, so we were able to use the same berth as we used 2 days ago.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we were able to make the most of the good weather to walk up Eldfell volcano, which erupted in 1973. The wind up at the top was horrendous so we had to be careful we didn't get blown off.

After climbing down, we had enough energy to walk up an older, extinct volcano, Helgafell. The path was steeper than that going up Eldfell. The path we took down was even worse with very loose lava gravel, so we had to make our way down very slowly. We were able to walk around the rim of this crater, and the views were well worth the climb.

We continued our walk through a bit of a residential area and then along the outskirts of the very beautiful and scenic Vestmannaeyjavöllur golf course, and past a monument to the members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) on the island who moved to Utah.

We passed 2 viking dwellings on the far side of the golf course and then wandered back through town to ship. To congratulate ourselves on our hike up the 2 volcanoes, we treated ourselves to a mug of hot chocolate.

The ship is now heading towards Greenland, a day's sailing from here.Read more