Hello from the Northern Hemisphere

Day 15: At sea

Well we’ve hit rough seas on our way to Iceland. 4 metre swell. One wave crashed against the windows of the lounge on Deck 4 and one quick passenger managed to capture it.

A bit of excitement….one of the crew had a medical emergency, so the ship speeded up in the early hours of the morning so that the ship could be reached by a helicopter from Iceland ( distance about 120 km) and the sick crew member was winched up and taken to hospital in Iceland. (The helicopter was too big and heavy to land on Scenic’s chopper pad).

Did a guided tour of the engine control room, led by the chief engineer. Incredibly interesting as to how they treat grey water and dark water (you know what I mean). They have two desalination plants on board, two boosters and some technology called Azipods which enables the ship to be very stable and to reposition quickly. They have a sonic boom(?) on the front of the ship which can see underwater ..see red circle below (so they can avoid icebergs).

Because of medical emergency, we arrived at Isafjordur earlier than expected. Isafjordur, (meaning ice fjord, literally fjord of ices) is a town in the northwest of Iceland with a population of about 2,600.

In the 16th century, the town grew as it became a trading post for foreign merchants. Witch trials were common around the same time throughout the Westfjords, and many people were banished to the nearby peninsula of Hornstrandir, now a national nature reserve. Clearly, they’re now much more tolerant

Very pretty town with coloured houses (again) and cute dogs!

Some interesting facts about Greenland sled dogs (for the dog lovers among us)

There are about 15,000 sled dogs in Greenland, down from 25,000 in 2002. (They know this because there is a National Greenland Dog Database).

There is a sled dog line…it’s forbidden by law to introduce any other dog breed north of the Arctic circle (so Norbert, Molly, Billie etc would not be welcome). This is to retain the genetic purity of sled dogs.

The dog sleds used today are the same technology used 1000 years ago…sleds are tied together with wood and cord, no nails.

The dogs all have names and sometimes are named after their individual characteristics, for example

• Ittoqut: the oldest of the team
• nutaraq: young dog that has just started to work in a team
• milatooq: speckled dog.