LIVE from "Iceland's Natural Beauty" -- All Sailings, 2021

[gramfrog]

1 hour ago, Doc who loves to travel said:

An aside from the test results today.  We went to golden circle from Jupiter.  It was pretty cold in the highlands. Bring your rain suits and warmer layers

 

pants https://amzn.to/2TbZpkz

coat https://amzn.to/3ejMg06

wore my fleece Leggings https://amzn.to/2oGqugs

 

wish I had a backpack waterproof case and gloves 

This is so helpful! What did you wear under your waterproof jacket?  and what do you mean waterproof case?

 

 

[Clay Clayton]

I found out this evening that according to the Maitre’d the Tv menu for Chef’s Table is wrong. 
Tomorrow “Route de Indes” starts and will end on Sat 7/17

 

that will be followed foe three days of Xiang (very tasty it’s what we had tonight), then 3 days of the British Menu. 

[Triptkr]

1 hour ago, Doc who loves to travel said:

An aside from the test results today.  We went to golden circle from Jupiter.  It was pretty cold in the highlands. Bring your rain suits and warmer layers

 

pants https://amzn.to/2TbZpkz

coat https://amzn.to/3ejMg06

wore my fleece Leggings https://amzn.to/2oGqugs

 

wish I had a backpack waterproof case and gloves 

for the waterproof pants...how did you figure out which size to get?  Do you wear them over your pants/jeans and put them on as you see you'll need them throughout the day--in this case order a bigger size-- or do you just wear the waterproof pants alone and order a smaller size?

[librarylady19]

13 hours ago, minka34 said:

Clay - can you give more info on where the knitting shop is in Isafjordur?  Is it walking distance from ship?  Do you have the name?  I want to try to get there, but we have a non-Viking tour to Dynjandi etc with Wild Westfjords that might take too much of the day.  I need to plan carefully and not miss the sail away!

I bought a head band there last week. They don't have yarn, just products knit by local women. It's right in town, which is a 10 minute walk at most.

[librarylady19]

58 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

I found out this evening that according to the Maitre’d the Tv menu for Chef’s Table is wrong. 
Tomorrow “Route de Indes” starts and will end on Sat 7/17

 

that will be followed foe three days of Xiang (very tasty it’s what we had tonight), then 3 days of the British Menu. 

Wish we had the British menu last week; we had the Asian (excellent) and the California (meh)

[librarylady19]

2 hours ago, Mehroswitha said:

On board Jupiter now. I’d been very disappointed at being unable to book the Vigur Island tour but inquired as soon as we boarded and had choice of two departure times! There IS hope! Now, if it just doesn’t rain too much!

 

Heart of the Glacier tour today was quite good. Recommend it highly but not for anyone with walking difficulties. Even with crampons for traction on ice footing is a bit tricky.

 

 

 

Fantastic; it was a memorable tour and Felicity Ashton, who own the island with her husband, is a marvelous guide. She will not tell you this, but she was the first women to cross Antarctica solo and her book is available in the gift shop (in the cafe). I bought a copy which she signed for me! 

http://www.felicityaston.co.uk/about

Edited July 14, 2021 by librarylady19

[SantaFe1]

17 minutes ago, librarylady19 said:

Fantastic; it was a memorable tour and Felicity Ashton, who own the island with her husband, is a marvelous guide. She will not tell you this, but she was the first women to cross Antarctica solo and her book is available in the gift shop (in the cafe). I bought a copy which she signed for me! 

http://www.felicityaston.co.uk/about

I had absolutely NO idea.  I loved her and she was indeed a fantastic guide around Vigur Island.  I am going to have to get her book.  Thanks for sharing this. 

[librarylady19]

2 minutes ago, SantaFe1 said:

I had absolutely NO idea.  I loved her and she was indeed a fantastic guide around Vigur Island.  I am going to have to get her book.  Thanks for sharing this. 

Wonderful. Correction: its Felicity Aston. 

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

16 minutes ago, librarylady19 said:

Wonderful. Correction: its Felicity Aston. 

Is Felicity "Kitty"?  I watched a video from Vigur Island a while back and "Kitty" was a guide, at least back in September 2006 when the person filmed part of the excursion.  If you have time, see Iceland Vigur Island Cruise and Tour - Bing video - you'll have to advance the video a little bit until the folks get on the island and meet the guide, who I believe introduces herself as Kitty.

[SantaFe1]

12 minutes ago, IWantToLiveOverTheSea said:

Is Felicity "Kitty"?  I watched a video from Vigur Island a while back and "Kitty" was a guide, at least back in September 2006

No I think not.  Felicity and her husband only bought the island two years ago.  Before that she was a polar explorer.  

[Snit13]

4 hours ago, kate7047 said:

I believe this is a general statement, but the false positive frequency has an inverse correlation with prevalence.    With Sky's passengers and crew being fully vaccinated, the true prevalence should be low, say <1%. Which would make the false positive rate pretty high. This is from an FDA bulletin 11/2020 which explains the inverse correlation. Reference at bottom.- 

 

Remember that positive predictive value (PPV) varies with disease prevalence when interpreting results from diagnostic tests. PPV is the percent of positive test results that are true positives. As disease prevalence decreases, the percent of test results that are false positives increase.

• For example, a test with 98% specificity would have a PPV of just over 80% in a population with 10% prevalence, meaning 20 out of 100 positive results would be false positives.
• The same test would only have a PPV of approximately 30% in a population with 1% prevalence, meaning 70 out of 100 positive results would be false positives.  This means that, in a population with 1% prevalence, only 30% of individuals with positive test results actually have the disease.
• At 0.1% prevalence, the PPV would only be 4%, meaning that 96 out of 100 positive results would be false positives.
• Health care providers should take the local prevalence into consideration when interpreting diagnostic test results.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/letters-health-care-providers/potential-false-positive-results-antigen-tests-rapid-detection-sars-cov-2-letter-clinical-laboratory

 

Punch line is this may be a false positive. Hope so. They will be rechecking. One of the reasons that Iceland dropped incoming visitor testing earlier this month is there had been only a few positives AMONG FULLY VACCINATED ARRIVALS since Iceland reopened and all of them turned out to be false positives. (n.b.- this does not hold true where prior probability of infection is higher, like in un-vaccinated people.) 

 

I too was hoping it was a false positive not only for the passenger who supposedly tested positive but for the crew and the remaining passengers.  I am fully vaccinated and would hate to have a false positive cause others to miss their long awaited cruise because of me.

[trhattan]

Can anyone comment on the "Hike the Eldfell Mountain: Extension to Included Tour" on Heimaey?  How strenuous  was the hike up the mountain?

[Mehroswitha]

Lunch at hotel associated with golf resort: soup of the day followed by a plate of white fish of some sort with a pea shoot garnish, mashed potatoes, veggie, and a lemony sauce.

Walking not on but inside a glacier was a unique experience!

Waterfalls lovely—rain not so much. As might be expected, it cleared shortly after we returned to bus.

[FoggyEthan]

8 hours ago, Mehroswitha said:

Lunch at hotel associated with golf resort: soup of the day followed by a plate of white fish of some sort with a pea shoot garnish, mashed potatoes, veggie, and a lemony sauce.

Walking not on but inside a glacier was a unique experience!

Waterfalls lovely—rain not so much. As might be expected, it cleared shortly after we returned to bus.

I've attached a photo of the main meal.

 

The soup was vegetables and lamb and croutons in a broth. I think they said the fish was cod. It was also very well cooked. So the lunch was quite good, if you enjoy those foods. The venue was Hótel Húsafell.

[shipster60]

Vigur  Island tour cancelled today because of high winds!😩im so disappointed. What’s my next best chance of seeing puffins?

[Clay Clayton]

Suggestion. Now that there are two ships, let’s start every post with ship name and embarkation date. 
 

I’ll go first!

Sky-July 10

 

It’s a beautiful day in Djùpivogur and we have been cleared to go ashore. Camiel (General Manager) stopped by our breakfast table (yes, lamb chops were there) and during our chat he mentioned that he had made the decision to delay the entire schedule today by two hours in case he needed it for extra negotiations. While it turned out to not be needed really glad he was proactive.  We were told last night that we would learn at 9am how our day would go and right at 9, Jenna announced we had been cleared and that revised excursion schedules were delivered to our room-we got ours this morning before breakfast when Gede picked up our test tubes. 
 

About 10 the first tenders left for shore so it appears that we are back to a regular cruise!  

 

 

[VI_Lounger]

1 hour ago, Clay Clayton said:

Suggestion. Now that there are two ships, let’s start every post with ship name and embarkation date. 
 

I’ll go first!

Sky-July 10

 

It’s a beautiful day in Djùpivogur and we have been cleared to go ashore. Camiel (General Manager) stopped by our breakfast table (yes, lamb chops were there) and during our chat he mentioned that he had made the decision to delay the entire schedule today by two hours in case he needed it for extra negotiations. While it turned out to not be needed really glad he was proactive.  We were told last night that we would learn at 9am how our day would go and right at 9, Jenna announced we had been cleared and that revised excursion schedules were delivered to our room-we got ours this morning before breakfast when Gede picked up our test tubes. 
 

About 10 the first tenders left for shore so it appears that we are back to a regular cruise!  

 

 

So happy for all of you and glad to see you got the same beautiful weather we had in this port last week. Enjoy your day!

[Dukefan]

6 minutes ago, VI_Lounger said:

So happy for all of you and glad to see you got the same beautiful weather we had in this port last week. Enjoy your day!

We have been blessed with beautiful weather every day of the cruise except for a brief sprinkle on day 3 and yesterday, day 5, when we were kept on board because of the single Covid positive test and experienced a brief shower.  Today is beautiful.  The interesting thing about weather here is the forecasts even for the next day are not always very accurate.  It is almost best to not prepare until right before you leave the ship.

[Clay Clayton]

Well damn. The Icelandic Coastguard has stopped allowing anyone ashore and requiring those ashore to return to the ship. Guess that’s what I get for complaining there weren’t any Sea days.  😢 

[JM0115]

12 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

Well damn. The Icelandic Coastguard has stopped allowing anyone ashore and requiring those ashore to return to the ship. Guess that’s what I get for complaining there weren’t any Sea days.  😢 

[JM0115]

2 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

Suggestion. Now that there are two ships, let’s start every post with ship name and embarkation date. 
 

I’ll go first!

Sky-July 10

 

It’s a beautiful day in Djùpivogur and we have been cleared to go ashore. Camiel (General Manager) stopped by our breakfast table (yes, lamb chops were there) and during our chat he mentioned that he had made the decision to delay the entire schedule today by two hours in case he needed it for extra negotiations. While it turned out to not be needed really glad he was proactive.  We were told last night that we would learn at 9am how our day would go and right at 9, Jenna announced we had been cleared and that revised excursion schedules were delivered to our room-we got ours this morning before breakfast when Gede picked up our test tubes. 
 

About 10 the first tenders left for shore so it appears that we are back to a regular cruise!  

 

 

Spoke too soon unfortunately, Clay☹️

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

4 hours ago, shipster60 said:

Vigur  Island tour cancelled today because of high winds!😩im so disappointed. What’s my next best chance of seeing puffins?

If you'd settle for just seeing a captive or a rescued puffin, there may be a couple options for seeing a rescued/not in the wild puffin on Heimaey.  But one option is a non-Viking excursion (Eyja Tours), so it may not be possible to do that excursion.  And the other may be the Beluga excursion arranged by Viking.  But I haven't really seen any recent comments/details on either excursion, so I don't know for sure if you would see a puffin or not.   

Edited July 15, 2021 by IWantToLiveOverTheSea

[Peregrina651]

On 7/11/2021 at 11:04 AM, alohadave said:

Looks as if we will not cross Arctic Circle.   No Blue Nose for YOU...

 

In fact, we do cross the Arctic Circle as it is actually just a few miles offshore as the ship sails from Akureyri to Seydisfjordur. However, there is no Bluenose ceremony, just a certificate delivered to your cabin.  

 

 

[bardstowntraveller]

Think I have a good handle for what to pack for excursions but am less sure on what to pack for dinner and ship time. Do most dress differently for time onboard?  I am trying to minimize what to bring but don’t want to be underdressed for dinner. Also, if people are changing for dinner, is summer clothing worn or is clothing more appropriate for the weather?

[ValarieDennis]

I packed black pants and different tops for dinner - a bit nicer than what I'm wearing on excursions, and a pair of black flats. Hubby has dockers and polo shirts for dinner, If we don't feel like "dressing up", we'll head to the World Cafe.