Into Iceland An unusual series of ports and countries was the draw for this cruise undertaken with my father and Phyllis Rice. We started in London, and then sailed from just down river at Tilbury on the Thames. Cowles, on the Isle of Wight in the English Channel, was the first stop and a chance to see the beautiful setting of Queen Victoria’s favorite home. From there it was onwards to Penzance in Cornwall in the very southwest of England, a charming hillside town set in a bay. Then across the Irish Sea to Dublin, Ireland. Our cruising then took us back across the northern part of the Irish Sea and to the town of Portree on the Isle of Skye in Scotland where we had a chance to see this ruggedly beautiful out-of-the-way island. Then it was out into the North Atlantic to reach the Faeroe Islands of Denmark, an almost treeless landscape of fjords and grasses. Venturing further north in the Atlantic, we did a 2/3 circumnavigation of the island of Iceland including a with stop along the northern coast in Akureyri, before completing our cruise in Reykjavik.
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| SilverSeas MV Silver Whisper at anchor off Cowles, Isle of Wight, England |
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| Osbourne House, favorite home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert |
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| Garden abstractions . . . |
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| New pine cones in a tree at Osbourne. |
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| Across the bay from Penzance, is Mount Saint Michael - similar to the more famous monestary in France. |
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| A mirror surface on the Irish Seas. |
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| At anchor off Portree, Isle of Skye. |
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| Thorshavn, capital of Denmark's Faroe Islands |
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| Grass on the rooftops is a common site around the island. |
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| A lone lighthouse on a Faeroe peninsula. |
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| Clouds rolling over top a rock outcropping. |
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| Sailing along the Northeast Coast of Iceland |
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| Eyjafjordur heading inward to Akureyri, Iceland. |
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| By charter plane, we fly northwards from Akureyri to Grimsey Island, crossing the Artic Circle. |
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| Chas at the marker for the Artic Circle. |
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| Summertime blooms above the Artic Circle. |
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| The Blue Lagoon Geothermal Spa is near Reykjavik. |
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| The outdoor bathing pools are set into the black lava rock. |
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| Chas in the surrounding lava fields leading to other sections fo the spa. |
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| Wing of the major church structure perched high above Reykjavik. |
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| The Silver Whisper heading for Greenland . . . without us! |
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