Sea Sick!

 We sailed overnight into the Arctic Circle.  The ship was rocking a lot so I woke up in the middle of the night and took this photo at 1.28am - just to show you how it never really gets dark here.  I think it was actually lighter at 1.28 in the morning than it had been at 1.28pm the previous afternoon (when it was raining)

I got up for breakfast but didn't have much of an appetite.  The ship was still rocking a lot.   I went to the theatre to listen to the destination briefing for the afternoon trip to Grimsey Island.  Halfway through I had to leave the theatre because I was feeling so ill.   I went back to the room and stood on the balcony for a while watching the horizon go up and down dramatically and hoping to feel better. Eventually Denise came back and saved my life by having a sea sickness patch in her luggage.  I had not packed any because I'm not usually sea sick and didn't think I'd need them.  I've done the Drake passage both ways (which is supposed to be the roughest stretch of sea in the world) and didn't have a problem, so Iceland should have been a breeze.   I've got a feeling that Le Bellot (the ship I'm on) does not have as good stabilizers as the Silver Explorer (which was the ship I sailed the Drake passage in).

I  managed a small lunch of thin soup and a bread roll and was beginning to feel a bit improved when the Captain made an announcement saying we had reached our off shore anchor point for Grimsey Island, but that the sea was so rough they could not drop anchor.   The decision had been made to sail on to another Island (Hrisey) which provided a more protected inlet, and to stop there instead.  We reached Hrisey at about 3.30pm, but I decided to stay on boat rather than taking the tender to shore.  I was still not feeling 100% and tomorrow will be another long day at Akureyri and Godafoss.  

A tender heads for Hrisey

Instead I hung around in the lounge listening to our French singer/piano player who is very good, and has an eclectic repertoire including Radiohead's "Creep" and Coldplay's "Fix You".  
I managed dinner this evening but decided to have an early night as the entertainment in the lounge tonight is a Karaoke evening and if anything will make me feel ill again that will.  Tomorrow we stop at Iceland's "second city":  Akureyri.