July 5
The beautiful weather returned today, although swells and wind made the transfer from the ship to land via Zodiacs a little exciting. The rule when boarding a Zodiac is to step onto the pontoon as the Zodiac rises with a wave - stepping when the Zodiac is falling away often leads to a head long dive into the Zodiac.
Our morning was spent visiting the village of Elduvik on the far northern Faroe island of Eysturoy. While in the summer the village has some additional visitors, in the winter the population is 12. We were the first of only three tourist ships that will visit them this summer - hosting the visits were two years in the planning. The villagers (with help from neighboring villagers) made us feel so welcome: there were hikes through a beautiful valley along the steam that bisects the village, tours through the village (it might be small, but every village has has some interesting historical tidbits), and homemade soup and cakes. Several of the villagers were dressed in the beautiful traditional costumes of the Faroe Islands. The villagers spent the time during the planning stage to create wonderful hand knit items. We opted for the hike up a long valley through the sheep meadows that were owned by our guide. The soup was delicious and many asked for the recipe only to be told by the hostess “it’s in my head”... so a lively discussion ensued amongst the guests to try to guess what was in it!
This afternoon we embarked on the 230 mile journey to the southeast coast of Iceland.
Pictured: soup hostess in traditional dress, stream, common snipe, the valley
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