Iceland: Part One
Sunday, May 4th, 2008The Norrona sailed out of Torshavn harbor at 5:00 pm sharp. After checking in, I went to find my cabin on deck 6. I was happy to discover that this time I had a cabin to myself. After plopping down my bags, I went out to the open deck to watch as the ship sailed away from the islands. The ship did a small sightseeing trip before heading out into the open ocean. We sailed up close to and between some of the islands that I hadn’t got to visit. It was very impressive to see the massive cliffs from a different angle. The air was full of seagull which nested amongst the rocks. With the huge cliffs in the background dwarfing the birds, they looked almost like a swarm of bees buzzing around the cliffs. After about 1.5 hours, we left the islands behind and headed out into the open ocean for Iceland. The wind picked up due to the increased boat speed and lack of land so most people went inside. I walked up to the front of the boat to watch the water pass below us. I was alone except for a young Frenchman (Laurent) and women (Marie). After I stood there for a while watching the waves, the French group waved me over and politely informed me that the Frenchman was going to strip naked and take a picture standing in the cold wind on the front of the boat to fulfill a bet. They hoped I wouldn´t mind. I replied that it didn’t bother me and went back to looking at the waves. (If a man is going to take a naked photo, a cold environment is probably not the wisest place to do so for several reasons.) After the bet was satisfied and clothes put back on, Laurent and Marie went back inside and asked if I wanted to join them in the bar car where they had to finish a bottle of wine. Marie ended up going to bed and I visited with Laurent while he finished the bottle. Laurent was going to work in Iceland for two months as a tour guide for French groups. His friend Marie just came for a vacation. They were driving to Akureyri. I was offered a ride if their friend didn’t show up when the ship docked. [read on]
cjun