Tuesday, August 25th, 2026

The great day of departure dawned with the sun beaming into our window and blue sky clearly visible. Despite the fact that we had already been on the far more formidable South Atlantic Ocean, on the same ship, I could not help but feel a tiny clutch of apprehension. Or maybe, I thought as I made Lucie her coffee, it was hunger. I had not, after all, overeaten for almost eleven hours !

We walked through the pedestrian precinct to look for a place to eat breakfast. Not much was open and, what was available, did not seem too alluring. At the crossroads, I looked towards the harbour and there, at the very front, was the good old Plancius. This was the ship which had conveyed us to Antarctica and would now take us to Greenland and beyond. That would not be much of a walk compared to the trek we had needed to make in order to board her in Ushuaia the previous year.

In the next street we found Café Berlin. This was more to my liking and I was able to get bacon and eggs on toast with, for some odd reason, a piece of brie and an avocado ….. Lucie had yogurt with nuts and fruit and an egg on toast, again accompanied by an avocado. It almost goes without saying that the guy running the place was a Czech, but in this instance he was a long-term resident and not a seasonal worker.

Then we went back to the Torg to pack, before wandering the short distance to Akureyri Backpackers Hostel where they had agreed to store our ….. backpacks.

We enjoyed a cider and espressos (deliberate plural) in the hostel cafe before heading out to hunt for an Iceland tee shirt. The one I bought on our honeymoon in 2004 had recently torn and I had promised Lucie that she could throw it away – if she bought me a new one ! Sadly, at least for my old tee shirt, we found one quite easily – and Lucie bought herself one as well (not exactly the same, of course), so it looked as if I would be saying goodbye to an old friend when we got back to Prague.

We had a little walk around the town – it was beautifully sunny. Down in the harbour, we could clearly see the Plancius.

still had time to spare so, while we waited, we went back to the Backpackers Hostel. They had a “replica” Polar Bear – and you know me ….

Boarding was slated to be at 16:00 so, at 15:30, we made our way to the ship. Of course there was already quite a line, but we were quite near the front. We saw Koen, who we remembered from the Antarctic and he spotted us straight away. He seemed to be the only member of the Antarctic team aboard for this voyage. Regrettably, he had no real news about Martin, the deputy expedition leader on our first trip. Martin was on the Hondius (the sister ship of Plancius) during an outbreak of Hantavirus on board that made world news – and was airlifted to hospital in the Netherlands. Koen had heard that Martin was “recovering”, but that was it.

Before boarding, the Icelandic police checked everybody’s passport. Considering that we were in the Schengen zone and would not leave it, this was a little strange. Still, there you are !

We are sad people and had booked exactly the same cabin as we had occupied in Antarctica – so we knew how to find it ! It had been redecorated since we were last there and the desk (where I typed this) was better. Lucie said a shelf had been removed too, she is a girl and they notice things like that. Already familiar with the cabin layout, she unpacked in about five minutes.

Right on time the crew cast off and away we went.

The rest of the day followed the same pattern as on our previous trip. First, there was the mandatory safety briefing. This was followed by the mandatory lifeboat drill, where, once again, we all proved we would have drowned long before we got anywhere near to the lifeboat.

This was followed by the introductory prosecco and “meet the crew” session. There was a new Captain, Christophe (he is French) as it seemed that Captain Yevgeny had retired.

Then it was dinner, some excellent roast beef, followed by apple crumble. Without our “gang”, our previously preferred table from Antarctica had been bagged – so we sat with some German people who spoke very good English.

After dinner, we sat and watched as the ship slowly left the inlet where Akureyri is situated.

We were moving North and hit the open sea almost exactly at sunset. The sun and Iceland disappeared in tandem. We would be steaming across the Denmark Strait all night and all of the next day – so, activity wise, it would be food interspersed with lectures.

I was feeling a bit tired, so I went to my bed. Although the sea was quite rough, I did not really notice and dropped off to sleep at once.