Arctic Cruise II--Isfajordur, Iceland (8.12.25)

As our cruise ship headed across the North Sea to Greenland, we stopped at Isfajordur, an outpost at the northwest tip of Iceland, on August 12, 2025.

Isfajordur is perched on the edge of the mountainous coast.  It is a small, European fishing town.

We traveled by small boat half an hour up the fjord near Isfajordur to Vigur, also known as "Bird Island".  Vigur is owned by a former Antarctic explorer who saw that an entire island was for sale and snapped it up.

Our island guide told us that Vigur makes its money from harvesting eiderdown. Eiderdown is the light, insulating feathers from eider ducks who frequent the island.  In the fall, workers trek across the island, collecting the feather nests built by the ducks for their chicks during the summer.  If the chicks are still in the nests, the workers substitute nests of leaves and grasses, and the ducks often cover those nests with feathers all over again.  

Our guide took us into the shed where the eiderdown is processed.  

A comforter made of premium eiderdown sells for $3000 to $4000 in Europe and up to $18,000 in Japan!

The eiderdown must be cleaned before being packed and exported.

Our guide also led us along a boardwalk, next to which hundreds, or even thousands, of birds nested during the summer.

Already, in mid-August, it was fall on Vigur.  Most of the birds had flown south for the winter.  We did see many terns, as well as one lone puffin.  During our trip to Iceland three years ago, we had searched in vain for puffins.  We were thrilled to see this one.

We returned to the Vigur cafe for a slice of a rhubarb orange tart, known as "happy marriage cake".

All over Scandinavia, white lace is the decoration for curtains and, in this restaurant, for table runners.

We studied a map of Iceland on the wall, which showed Vigur as a small island in the fjord beyond Isafjordur.

An elderly woman approached us, to talk about Vigur.  She was the mother of the owner, the Antarctic explorer.  When I asked if I could take her picture, she said, "Why?  I'm not the explorer."

We walked about tiny Vigur, as we waited for our boat back to Isfajordur to arrive.  On this rainy day, the views were beautiful, in a melancholy way.

We walked to a windmill and could see seals resting on rocks offshore.

Finally, it was time to travel back to Isfajordur and take a tender back to our ship, the Sirena, waiting offshore.

Arctic Cruise I--Reykjavik, Iceland (8.11.25)

Dave loves the antipodes--the two icy ends of the earth.  I love the humid, multi-ethnic middle.  On August 10, 2025, we left for David's dream trip.  It was a 30-plus day cruise on Dave's favorite cruise line, Oceania, from Iceland to Greenland, Scotland, the Faroe Islands, the Shetland Islands, and the Orkneys, to Svalbard in Arctic Norway, and then down the Norwegian coast to Amsterdam.  A slice of heaven!

Reykjavik is one of our favorite cities.  It is sparkling clean, charmingly Scandinavian, small, and filled with picturesque views, shops, museums, and restaurants.

We reoriented ourselves to Viking culture by browsing through Reykjavik's National Museum.  Iceland's language is closer to Old Norse than that of Sweden, Denmark, or Norway, but its treasures from the 800s through the Middle Ages reflect the same culture as its Scandinavian neighbors.

Iceland was ruled by Norway and then Denmark for many centuries.  Monuments throughout the city and this portrait in the National Museum honor the leaders of Iceland's independence movement.

Iceland also has a Nazi connection.  During World War II, Britain invaded Iceland to prevent it from falling into Nazi control, as Norway had.  Americans established military bases there which remain today.

Dave has an iron-clad rule of arriving a day early for every cruise and international tour.  We were hung over from our red-eye flight, our first day in Reykjavik. We took the "Golden Circle" bus tour through southern Iceland, so we could drowse on the bus.  In just six hours, we visited geysers, waterfalls, a volcanic caldera, and a gorge, created where the North American tectonic plate crashes into the European tectonic plate.  The first parliament in the world was held near the gorge, in the 800s.

On August 12, 2025, the day our ship sailed, we took a walking tour of Reykjavik with an interesting guide.  He was originally a criminal lawyer from Italy who fell in love with Iceland and had lived there for more than 20 years.  He pointed out unique architecture in Reykjavik, including the original homes, covered in tin to protect them from the harsh snows; a new office building built from horizontal stripes of volcanic basalt; and the homes of the wealthy, including a Russian tycoon's home with an onion-shaped tower.

The city is filled with statues.  They are mostly of political leaders, but a statute by the harbor honors the "blockheads" who toil away in government positions.

We walked to the top of a hill above Reykjavik, where a statute of Eric the Red, who discovered Greenland, stands next to a strikingly modern cathedral.

Inside the cathedral were beautiful stained glass windows, as well as a strikingly modern statue of Christ.

Our last stop on the tour was the home of one of Iceland's greatest sculptors.  His garden was filled with Art Nouveau statues from the early 1900s. Art Nouveau is one of my favorite artistic styles.

The sculptures were dramatic, exploring themes of mourning, death, and fate.

Even in this remote corner of the world, the population was dealing with movements that polarize much of the world, such as gay rights and the war in Gaza.

It's a Match! (8.9.25)

Our granddaughter, Annie Ebert, is engaged to Mason Thomas.  They will be married in the LDS Temple in St George, Utah, on November 15, 2025, and will have a wedding reception in Salt Lake City next May.  Annie recently graduated from BYU's AdLab, has already received national awards for her work, and is an advertising associate with Disney in Orlando, Florida.  Mason is managing the Florida operations for the water distribution business of his future brother-in-law, Jono Ebert.  Mason says that he was immediately impressed with Annie's drive--she has big goals and goes after them with intensity.  Annie is a talented photographer, very artistic, and she lights up the room with her smile. Mason studied finance at Utah Valley University, has a warm, charming personality, and studies history for fun.