The United States and the UK both had chances to buy Iceland. They put in offers, but Ireland probably still has the best claim to it. Gaelic “papar” hermit priests settled there in the ninth century before the first Norwegian settlers arrived. Long before it became a Republic in 1944 and beer was legalized in 1989. Expedition leaders began telling people about Europe’s most sparsely populated country and that herrings reach sexual maturity at the age of three.
Not many, if any cruise ships, can boast a resident opera singer and a pianist who studied under the Vatican’s chief organist. Few, if any, have discovered and given its name to an island in high Antarctica.
Tour guide and on-board lecturer Arndís Halla Ásgeirsdóttir studied at the Söngskólinn (Reykjavik Academy of Singing and Vocal Arts). She has recorded six albums and performed in Prague, Monte Carlo, South Korea, and Venice. As well as performing regularly, accompanied by keyboard maestro Ingimar Palsson. In the Ocean Breeze Lounge of the North Atlantic Ocean-going MS Seaventure. And – sea conditions permitting – in a Zodiac inflatable dinghy in the acoustic caves of the Westmann islands where she gives a recital of “Amazing Grace”.
The Viking explorer Garðar Svavarsson is credited with being the first person to circumnavigate Iceland by boat. In 870.
In 1999 adventure company Zegrahm Expeditions started operating a ship-based tour of Iceland and, in 2015, Iceland’s leading tour operator, Iceland ProTravel, began circumnavigations of the country using a chartered ship, Ocean Diamond.
Today, from June to August the seven-deck, 113m, 60 crew and cosmopolitan and 55+, 160 passenger, two-suite MS Seaventure, which was built in 1990 in Japan and is responsible for Bremen Island when it was MS Bremen, cruises around Europe’s most sparsely populated country.
In 2024, they offer a “Hot Springs And Eternal Ice” combined Iceland Circumnavigation and the Natural Wonders of Greenland.
Leaving and disembarking Reykjavik harbor beside the city’s Harpa concert hall, Iceland Pro Cruises 10-day, 1280 nautical mile (1380 land mile) “Circumnavigation of Iceland” cruise sails clockwise, taking in the ports and fishing villages of Stykissholmur on the Snaefellssnes peninsula, Isafjordur, Siglufordur, north coast Husavik ( the whaling capital), Seydisfjordur and Djupivogur on the east coast and the Vesmannjaer islands off south-east Iceland. Buses are waiting for you all the way around Iceland.
The cruise introduces you to glacier tongues and fingers, whales, dolphins, seals, a glacial lagoon, guano-splattered cliffs, countless waterfalls, petrified trolls and other impressive lava formations, basalt outcrops and columns, Arctic chard hotel lunches, the islands of Flatey and Grimsey, various seismic hotspots, the 34-40 degrees Myvatyn nature baths in north Iceland (a 288-mile drive from the capital) and Vok’s floating bio-active thermal spring pools and freshwater fields of Alaskan lupines and dwarf birch, the Bjarnarhofn shark museum with Greenland shark tasting included (think cheese), the fjord containing Iceland’s Loch Ness monster (The Wyrm) and the country’s only arboretum.
It is a very well-organized luxury adult field trip. And very sinful. A full-board expedition with far too much cake.
The captain is Croatian (the charming Ivo Botica), the crew Filipino and Balinese and the menus include Lambaframpartur” Icelandic slow braised lamb shoulder “Steiktur lambalæri-Icelandic Braised Lamb shank, pan-seared duck (not eider), guinea breast, “Humarsupa” lobster soup, pan-seared fresh Icelandic ling and a sinful array of highly calorific and dangerously moreish desserts.
Including Icelandic-style date cake, Skyr (curdled milk and strained yogurt) cake, Icelandic pancakes with cream and berries, chilled yogurt-peach cream pie, poached pineapple coupe, and too much vanilla ice cream. The coastline slides by. Breaching humpbacks is sometimes on the menu.
Wine on board is $33-37, a G&T $10 and cocktails $8. Also laid on are Chef Rufino’s afternoon tea gateaux.
You have to watch your weight on the SeaVenture. The Icelandic horse-trekking trip (never call them ponies) has a maximum weight limit of sixteen stone.
The shore excursions (two Zodiac landings and the rest from pierside) are brilliantly organized by cruise leader and expedition Hermann Helgusson who wakes you every morning over the tannoy with “Good morning dear ladies and gentlemen to another beautiful day.”
Even if the weather and swell are not. There is no such thing as typical Icelandic weather.
Along with his team of experts, Hermann gives multi-lingual lectures in the Expedition Lounge auditorium on everything from knitting, geology, ornithology, and political history. He even shows you his own dramatic drone film footage of the 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption.
Among many highlights including the Cyprus-registered ship slowly pirouetting mid-fjord surrounded by whales was the Crossing The Polar Circle party for which you get a certificate to remind you of Lat 66 58’N, Longitude 16 28’W and the amount of “brennivin” (Icelandic caraway-infused aquavit) you consumed and the knees-up you had along with Abba, Bruce Springsteen, the Australian and German couples and the Texan with the mustache who kept confusing Iceland with Ireland.
As well as the idiosyncratic entertainment on board (it is no spoiler to say that Canadian-Polish maitre d’, Peter Podazski is the star of the crew cabaret show), with the visit to the Herring Era Museum at… came a concert by old “herring girl” Birna Bjornsdottir who, dressed in traditional sykikluter” scarf and “slidarphilis” herring salting and barrelling apron who sang about her “silver darlings” (“Gjof Guds” or “God’s gift”) and made the Herring War of 1863 feel like only yesterday?
But ignore everything else…
Forget the volcanos, glaciers the size of Costa Rica, the ice caves, fulmar colonies, black beaches, seals, geysers, turf-roofed houses, the hydroelastic and pyroclastic deposits, discrete cirques, pseudo-craters, the early Quantary period terrain, the optional $550 plane flight and the unrelenting dramatic landscape which one guidebook gamely and poetically described as “enormously large rocks strewn in unusual places”.
And the culture…
The main reason most people visit the world’s third largest snow cap is to combat crepey-ness. Hardly anyone misses the bubbling mineral-rich thermal spring bath visits. And everyone bonds bathing together. Sitting up to your neck in warm water masked by sulfur steam visibly diminishes the signs of aging, as well as the a la Kirk Douglas in “The Vikings” yoke pattern sweater, the puffin beanie, and stone bramble jam, most come back from Iceland with souvenirs in the form of volcano ash exfoliators, transdermal Artic super-berry pads and glacial ice melt face mists to keep the forehead furrows from turning into fissures.
Nothing prepares you for the beauty of Iceland. It leaves everyone with a happy glow. www.icelandprocruises.com
Circumnavigation of Iceland cruises begins at $4,415 (£3,372) per person, etc. Flights. Greenland cruises start at $9,970
ICELANDAIR flies daily to Keflavik which is a 45-minute shuttle to the harbor.
Post- or pre-cruise, stay at The Reykjavik Hilton or the new Parliament Hotel Curio Collection By Hilton Hotel.
