June 4 - The general consensus today is to go to Heimaey Island, off the southern coast of Iceland, by local ferry. I didn’t want to suggest this because of the high winds (60-90 km/hr today), but if everyone is fine with it, that works for me.
It is about 30 minute drive to the ferry port at Landeyjahöfn, where it costs about $200 for all five of us plus the car roundtrip. I drive the car onto the ferry, while everyone else goes on the walkway. The air is full of basalt sand, in a minute my jacket pockets and eyes are full of it.
As expected, the sea is rough. I won’t attempt to calculate the swells, but there were times when it wasn’t possible to walk around. The hull shuddered with the impact of waves once we were out in the unprotected straits. After 40 minutes of this is was a relief to enter the bay on Heimaey, to the town of Vestmannaeyjar on its north coast. The town takes up a significant fraction of the entire island.
Having the car turns out to be the best option, I’m glad we chose to bring it along. The freezing winds would have made it impossible to tour the island otherwise, since there is no sign of an available bus tour.
We first go to the Beluga Whale Sanctuary. This little aquarium hosts White and Grey, two belugas transported here from a sanctuary in Shanghai, and are both originally from waters off of Russia. Here they have an outdoor area they can swim, basically part of the ocean but with a barrier. Having spent most of their lives in captivity, it is not known if they would survive in the open ocean.
A few facts about belugas:
- They have a large vocabulary of vocalizations, so are able to express a range of ideas to each other and their human helpers
- Their body fat ratio is very high, to help with the extreme cold of their native arctic environment
- They lack a dorsal fin, probably an evolutionary modification from swimming under ice so much of the time
The sanctuary also hosts some puffins. Heimaey has one of the largest puffin colonies in Iceland. The young ones (called pufflings) sometimes get disoriented by the town lights and wander in. When this happens, they are gathered up by the town residents and brought to the sanctuary to be looked after until they can be released back into the colony.
While Mike and Debbie go to a restaurant for soup, we visit the lava flow on the east side of town. It is from the eruption of nearby Eldfell in 1973, which forced evacuation of the island. A resident who spoke to us said that, as a child, he went to a school on the mainland for some time before he and his family could return. When they did, the entire town was black with ash and some buildings had been destroyed by the lava.
From here we all drive to the southern tip of the island, where the largest puffin colony is. Whatever wind we’ve seen up until now is much less than what we experience out here. There are gusts that are difficult to withstand. It is just a few minutes walk to a hide, from where we can look down at the cliffs. It takes a few minutes but we finally start to see puffins, usually rocketing by as they attempt to negotiate the wind. Do not see any diving into the ocean, perhaps conditions are too difficult to hunt fish. The only animal we see in the water is a seal, for which the wind is of little consequence.
Drive to some other viewpoints, and go through an ancient crater on the northwest corner of the island (Herjolfsdalur) before retreating to town again. Not much else can be done in the wind, as the other museum options close at 17:00. Wait for the 19:30 ferry back to the mainland. The wind is even stronger now, but heading into it makes for a slightly smoother ride on the return.
Back at Landeyjahöfn, make the decision to forgo any further sightseeing today and return to the farmhouse to cook dinner. At any rate it is after 20:00, though seems like early afternoon.