Grimsey - The Arctic Circle - July 23, 2021

Odin has been kind and the seas were flat all night and all day. The ship is riding steady as if she were a train on the rails. We had a delightful visit to Grimsey and got the money shots proving we have crossed the Arctic Circle. Here are some fun facts about Grimsey.

5.3 square km (3.2 miles) in size

41 km (25 miles) off the north coast of Iceland

This is the lat/lon of Grimsey - 66.53929 N and 18.00457 W

The population of Grimsey is 90 people and 3 million birds. This includes 40,000 pairs of puffins. Male puffins sleep on the water at night, then they feed and come ashore.

The main industry is fishing. Codfish make up 78% of the catch.

Grimsey has one restaurant, one grocery store, one souvenir store, one camp site one sauna.

There are no rodents, minx, foxes, snakes or mosquitoes

Orbis et Globus is located on the Arctic circle. It is a 3 meter granite sphere that is moved around the island to the exact location of the Arctic Circle.

Fotur is the northern most point on Grimsey.

Arctic terns migrate from Grimsey on the Arctic circle to the Antarctic circle. This Is the longest migration of any birds which is 40,000 mile round trip.

Here is a map of Grimsey. The Orbis et Globus is on the northern tip. It is six mile round trip hike from the harbor.

The photo spot shows the distance from the Arctic Circle to various major cities.

From this spot on Grimsey it is 1862 miles to Moscow, 9785 miles to Sydney and 2,667 miles to NYC.

This is the Orbis et Globus. It is moved around the island to match the exact location of the Arctic Circle.

Here are pictures of Puffins. We took these photos. They were not taken off the web.

This is one of our Tauck naturalists Marcos. We met Marcos for the first time during our Panama Canal trip. He has a telescope that allowed us to get close up views and photos of Puffins.

This photo was taken with the help of Marcos’ telescope. The Puffin has herring in her mouth to feed her babies.

This photo was taken at 12:30 am off the northern coast of Iceland, Yes, this is the land of the midnight sun.

Here is an overview of our trip itinerary. Tomorrow we will explore Akureyri.

Here is a photo of a photo of me at the welcoming gala dinner. We are under way on glass flat seas on our way to Akureyri. — Here is a photo of a photo of me at the welcoming gala dinner.
We are under way on glass flat seas on our way to Akureyri.