We woke up early Tuesday morning to drive to a ferry that would take us to the Westman (Vestmannaeyjar) Islands. It was only a forty minute ferry ride. We could have taken the RV across on the ferry, but we decided not to. The Westman Islands are a collection of fifteen islands off the southern coast of Iceland. The largest is Heimaey with a population of under 4000 people. The other islands are uninhabited except for hunting cabins. Heimaey is known for the volcanic eruption in 1973 in which a fifth of the island was destroyed. Luckily, there were no deaths. It is also known for having the largest puffin colony. We took a tour of the island with one of the locals whose family dates back to 900. We learned so much on this tour and we really enjoyed it.
Chocolate mjolk and a muffin on the ferry!
Vikings
On our first stop of the tour, we learned about spranga. They teach children, starting around age eight, to spranga. With this, they swing from ropes to climb the cliffs to gather bird eggs.
Our guide, Ebbi, did a cool demonstration.
Once a year (actually the first weekend we were in Iceland) there is a huge concert on the Westman Islands held in the crater of an old volcano.
Given the small size of the island and limited resources, there used to be a cap on the number of horses allowed on the island. They used to drown excess horses in this water to keep the numbers in check.
There is a golf course in this area as well. It is the only golf course with a hole crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
They recovered the first stone Viking house here on Heimaey. This was a rendition.
We visited a huge puffin colony. We learned all about puffins. They come to the Westman Islands to nest. The will come back annually to the same hole in the ground. Their nest has two "rooms" - one for nesting, eating, sleeping and another for using the bathroom. They will keep the same mate throughout their life. They leave about a week after we saw them to go back out to sea for five months. During hatching season, the baby pufflings will fly at night to the moonlight to make their first flight. Now with streetlights, many of them end up on the streets confused and will starve. Every night during puffling season, the people living on the Westman Islands go out and collect any stranded baby birds, take them home to feed them, then release them in the morning out to sea. They try to release them in an area of a colony as they will always return to the part of the island where they were released.
We visited the site of the Eldfell eruption. This eruption started in the middle of the night without warning. Luckily, the weather had been poor so boats had not left the harbor that day. Everyone was able to be successfully evacuated by boat. People were able to return to their homes five months later. Many of the homes and buildings were destroyed. They are now buried under a hill and have markers where the streets used to be.
The lava stopped right before this house.
After our tour, the kids played on a playground.
We stopped for lunch at Gott and it was delicious!
We made a quick trip to the beluga whale sanctuary. This is also where they take any injured baby puffins.
These whales were taken from a small zoo in China. They made a large enclosure in one of the bays on the island and released the whales there. They cannot hunt for themselves as they were raised in captivity. One of the whales ended up having a fear of large spaces so they were moved back to the rehabilitation center a few weeks before we visited. They do plan to move them back to the bay. Keiko, the whale from Free Willy, actually spent time here as well.
We had a boat tour scheduled after the sanctuary.
Alex and the kids fell asleep under the boat.
I was very excited to see elephant rock.
They use ropes to get up onto the smaller islands.
This is the future home of the whales.
The acoustics in this cave were impressive. They played a song on the speakers.
We stopped at a cafe after the boat tour.
The kids watched a movie on the ferry back to the mainland.
Our campsite was boring with no shower. Luckily, we were all tired and went to sleep.
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