Iceland: Vigur And Leaving Iceland

Once back in Isafjordur we made our way to shore in the dinghy to find Ken Bower walking down the dock to meet us. Ken is an American photographer who we met in the Faroe Islands who also happened to be on his way to Iceland. We had exchanged emails hoping to cross paths again.

Snow Dragon At Anchor, Vigur

Ken happened to be back in Isafjordur ahead of schedule and was free the following day. Over tea at the Edinborg Bistro we decided to take advantage of the summer weather that had finally arrived in Iceland and sail out to the island of Vigur in the morning. Ken met us at 8am with a large pastry in hand and we had a leisurely breakfast as we motored the two hours to Vigur with no wind and flat seas. 

Vigur And Snorri's Daughter Playing

On shore we met Snorri Salvarsson, the son of Salvar Baldursson who owns the farm on the island. Snorri’s parents are the islands only residents and he explained that his parents had just recently given up sheep and cattle farming and now focus on eiderdown collecting and the tour groups that visit the island. The down keeps them busy with 3,500 eider nests they are kept busy collecting in the summer and cleaning the down in the winter before selling it. They are able to limit how many tourists the tour boats bring to the island which helps keep Vigur’s peaceful atmosphere and the owner’s sanity.

Ken Photographing An Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern

A tour group arrived just as we were sitting down to tea, coffee and cake at the farm’s café. Luckily we noticed that the tour was given sticks with flags to ward off arctic terns and decided to borrow a few sticks for our own walk around the island. It turned out to be the right decision as the terns were quite aggressive especially when we walked near their chicks who were freely roaming.

Arctic Tern Chicks

When we returned from our walk we asked Snorri why dead ravens were being used as scarecrows. He explained that one raven nested on the island and protected it from other ravens who eat the young of other birds. However, this year the raven’s eggs did not hatch and the raven had no incentive protect its territory. Other ravens moved in and attacked the eider and tern nests causing Salvar to have to spend the night defending the nesting birds with a rifle.

Dead Raven Being Uses As A Scarecrow

The wind still had not come up by the afternoon and we motored back to Isafjordur where Ken kindly drove us to the large supermarket outside town so we could do our final provisioning for Greenland. After helping us carry our groceries to the dinghy we said goodbye and extended an invitation for Ken to visit us when we are in Eastern Canada.

Final Provisioning For Greenland 

The Danish ice charts showed we could leave for east Greenland at any point but the wind report indicated we would have more favorable winds if we waited until Saturday to depart. To make the most of our last day in Iceland we had lunch outside at Edinburg Bistro where we had a good view of the fjord and Snow Dragon at anchor. Then we moved Snow Dragon over to the dock and rafted up to Aurora so that we could top up our water tanks and have customs clear us out of Iceland. 

Sigurdur and his crew member Riikka kindly took our lines and they came over for a visit. When Sigurdur heard we were planning on taking our dinghy across the bay to shorten the distance we needed to walk to harvest more wild rhubarb he lent us his car. We returned with a large bag full and gave some to Sigurdur and took the rest of our embarrassing load back to Snow Dragon. After we got our dinghy and motor on deck, the crew of Aurora joined us for wine before we all headed over to a concert with a talented guitarist from Brazil and a fantastic Icelandic Saxophonist.

2am In Isafjordur, Snow Dragon On The Right

We returned to Snow Dragon at 2am, just in time to catch the bright pink sunset. Now after a reasonable night’s sleep there is not much between us and leaving for Ammassalik other than making sure all of our lettuce plants our secure for the crossing. We’ll be tweeting about the passage to Greenland, please check out our twitter page https://twitter.com/SnowDragonII or @SnowDragonII.

For more photos please click on Vigur Album