Ice Paradise

Putting the ice in Iceland

There are some who ask why I cruise, considering the queasiness I experience every time. Because I love my nearest and dearest who thoroughly enjoys the days at sea. Thankfully for me, there are only two days at sea on this trip. Queasiness continued to be the order of the evening for me, so we chose to have a light meal in our room in the hope it would settle me.

A night of rock and roll. Sadly not of the music variety. Each time the ship rolled my way I felt perilously close to falling out of the bed. Each time the ship rocked Nick’s way, I felt he was perilously close to falling into the gap between the bed and the cabin wall. He has just enough room to get out of bed, so there was not a chance he’d fall out of the bed, he’d simply get stuck.

At 6am on the button, the anchors descended into the sea. Welcome to Iceland. 11 degrees and misty. Thankfully the swell of the night had subsided now that we were in the lee of Djúpivogur.

Showers and breakfast in the room, stoking up on omelette, toast and fruit for me, omelette and porridge for Nick. Then we start the dressing process which involves a million and one layers. Obviously we don’t need all these layers for the bus trip, but we sure do need them when we get to the Fjallsárlón glacier lagoon which is where we’re headed today. Plus we need some of our warm weather gear on the zodiac trip which can get very splashy and breezy when the pilot opens the throttle. On with the sexy base layer, winter fleece trousers, fleeces, gilet, puffers jackets and anoraks, resembling a pair of Michelin men. Each time a new layer goes on, the balcony door gets opened wider and wider.

Breakfast of Champions. In our suite.

Just before 8am, we get our call and waddle our way down to deck three, stumbling our way onto a very bumpy, splashy Zodiac.

On our landing into the tiny community of Djúpivogur, we’re introduced to our driver Hanness and our guide Thorsted.

There are very few trees, masses of invasive Lupins, sharp vertiginous basalt mountains, scree, contrasting with utterly flat land. Imagine a combination of Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Game of Thrones. That’s what the area looked like. The atmosphere was hostile, tranquil, and bleak changing between all these elements constantly, but is totally beautiful and mesmerising.

Our guide told that he, like so many others were now changing from working in farming to working in tourism. He discussed the cost of living crisis and that their taxes are 37%, so maybe let’s stop complaining about ours. The environment is pristine. Here’s hoping the increased volume of tourism doesn’t detrimentally alter that.

I didn’t relish the idea of a two and a half hour bus ride to the glacier and then the same on the way back. However, our guide was complaining about the state of the Icelandic roads. He clearly hasn’t experienced the state of UK roads. To me, they were smooth, no potholes and although fairly windy, our bus driver negotiated the slow driving tourists perfectly.

We were given a brief respite stop at Höfn and then off again, arriving at Fjallsárlón a little after 11.30am. We were split into two groups and our group chose the short straw and had our lunch first. Well, I guess we’ll go on our zodiac tour all snug from lunch. I had pre- warned Reception that I was pesci (or should that be pesky?) and was presented with a vat of vege stew. With that inside me and all my gear, plus all the gear we were then given, I might actually overheat. To have such an experience as this, to be so up close to the glaciers, I really didn’t want to muff it up by being cold. So on top of all the aforementioned layers, I don a further expedition waterproof anorak and dayglo orange over trousers. Now I’m really struggling walking and we both get a fit of the hysterics when we finally locate each other in the melee of other Michelin men lookalikes.

We had a reasonable trek to the landing stage, but it gave us time to take in what we’re going to get up close and personal with.

A panorama of glaciers descending from the volcanic shield

This experience was way less scary than I thought it would be. We’d been up close to the Chilean glaciers and I was expecting something similar, being a dot in front of a tower of ice. However, being in a glacial lagoon felt protected and there was certainly no hint of any wild life. The depth was about 130m and this was the distance we were able to get to the glacier edge. The scale can be appreciated when you see one of the ten person zodiacs in the water against the glacier wall. The trip was enchanting. We saw masses of icebergs up close, a number of which had very recently dislodged themselves from the main glacier. Our pilot expertly picked up a small piece of ice for us to hold.

The glacial lagoon - zoom it to find a Zodiac boat!

We finished a very special day with an excellent zodiac ride back to the boat, with our pilot opening up the throttle, much to the consternation of the two Americans sitting opposite us. Well, we had a grand old time whooping like proper kids. An exhausting day where I have to admit to very much looking forward to a very hot shower and a very large glass of red wine.

The glacier wall and two Zodiacs