Cruise ports in Cruises in Iceland

Photo: Jóhann Heiðar Árnason / wikipedia, cc-by-3.0

Capital Region and Eastern Fjords

On an Iceland cruise, the ports are set in markedly different landscapes. In the greater Reykjavík area, the capital region shapes the visit; Seyðisfjörður, by contrast, lies in the east at the end of a long fjord. Choosing a port therefore means more than encountering a different place name: it is a shift between an urban center and a small settlement framed by a fjord and mountains.

Fjords cut into the Icelandic coast on almost every side; the south coast is the main exception. Glaciers carved these sea inlets during the Ice Age. Where mountains rise steeply from the water, only narrow strips of land often remain between the shore and the slopes for settlements. Around Seyðisfjörður, the bedrock consists mainly of basaltic lava layers around twelve million years old, interspersed with sedimentary layers; the layers have undergone slight metamorphism.

Seyðisfjörður at the End of the Fjord

Seyðisfjörður extends about 17 kilometers from the mouth of the fjord to the town of the same name at its innermost end. Strandartindur and Bjólfur flank the town; according to the port authority, their summits reach 1,010 and 1,085 meters, respectively. The port authority lists a North Pier and a South Pier, as well as a floating tender landing. The floating tender dock is 20 meters long and 2.5 meters wide. The two piers are 150 and 170 meters long; the authority gives the distance to the town center as about 300 meters. For the tender landing, it lists a distance of 200 meters to the terminal. At low tide, the water depth is ten meters alongside the pier and 40 meters in the anchorage.

The fjord area was fully settled by the year 1000. For centuries, its inhabitants were mainly farmers living on ten to twenty farms. Trade developed further in the 19th century; around 1870, a period of growth known as the herring era began. During this time, the population grew from approximately 200 to around 1,000. The settlement was spread across four districts on either side of the Seyðisfjarðará River. Fjarðaralda and Búðareyri make up the town today; Vestdalseyri and Eyrar were abandoned.