Seyðisfjörður & Skálanes Nature Center

After leaving Akureyi, we continued on to the scenic village of Seyðisfjörður that is located deep in a fjord on the eastern coast of Iceland. This was the first stop on this cruise where we used the Viking Sky’s tenders to go ashore, even though there was a big dock at the village.

We’re not sure if docking right at the village is ever an option for Viking, but the ferry that regularly runs between Iceland and the Faroe Islands was in port. If you’re a fan of the Netflix series Trapped that I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, you’ll definitely recognize this vessel:

The village itself has several sites that make regular appearances on social media sites, including especially this view down the street to the village church:

Other views around the village that we saw on our walking tour:

COVID restrictions prevented us from freely mingling with the locals, but Viking did arrange for access by passengers to a handful of the local craft shops.

Iceland’s terrain is still forming not just from volcanic action, but also from landslides and avalanches. A recent landslide at the edge of the village that destroyed some dwelling also lead to the condemnation of others because of the risk of further erosion. The landscape scar was still evident:

In the afternoon I went on an outing to the Skálanes Nature Center, a research center located near the mouth of the fjord. On a Viking tour, the transportation is usually your typical tourist bus. Not for this tour. When we started we weren’t really sure why we needed this rough and ready high-rise bus:

We soon learned it was because we weren’t going to be traveling on a smooth-riding highway:

Besides fording a stream, along the way we stopped at an old, abandoned farm house and a medieval grave site before arriving at the research center with its scenic location:

We saw field after field choked with Alaskan lupine that had been sown from the air long ago in an attempt to curb the erosion that had been caused by sheep overgrazing the arctic terrain. Some researchers at the center had seen evidence that this approach was working as the lupine had stabilized and enriched the soil and was slowing giving way to new species.

From the research center we walked along the shore (with some late season ducks bobbing in the water, including some Eiders) headed to an overlook next to sea cliffs that, despite being so late in the summer, still had numerous fulmars living on narrow ledges.

As the sky started to pick up some evening color, we headed back to the Viking Sky to continue on to the last new port of our cruise – Djúpivogur.