Norwegian Sea

The sea northeast of Iceland washes a coast of bays and long headlands. Vopnafjörður opens among the mountains to the south, a harbor visited by foreign merchants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Farther north, waters from the Arctic can carry ice toward Iceland when winds and currents favor its passage. For ships arriving from the Norwegian Sea, the fjords offer shelter along a coast exposed to cold weather and the open North Atlantic.