Day 3 – Heimaey and the damn puffins

The next morning took us to Vestmannaeyjar.  Vestmannaeyjar is an island group off the southwest coast, the largest of which is Heimaey, widely known for its populations of migratory birds, and also for erupting with no warning in 1973 and forcing a five month evacuation of all its inhabitants.  We were going there for the puffins.

The puffin is a small, entertaining bird that lives its life at sea except for four months every year when massive flocks of them find the most unfriendly forbidding cliffs in the world and then raise their young there in burrows in the ground.  Mid August, the last of the nesting puffins are going back into the sea until next summer.  I’m not sure anyone knows quite where they go, but they leave, like clockwork.  And we’d been told they were going.

I should take responsibility for the whole puffin thing.  I was in Newfoundland ten years and never clapped eyes on a puffin; when we visited St. Mary’s Bird Reserve years later the gannets were in season, the puffins were out.  So if there was a puffin in Iceland, I was going to see it.

(There was, and I did).  Just in case the suspense was getting to be too much.

The weather was Maritime; when we got deposited at the new, swoop-roofed ferry terminal, I had to walk around on the breakwater because it was blocking the view.   Of course it was only blocking the view of a few hundred meters of ocean, but it still felt elemental to walk around on the recently built breakwater in the insistent wind and rain.  Vestmannaeyjar used to have a much longer ferry route to reach it, a three hour trip from þorlákshöfn, but lucky for us, a month ago the new, half-hour route went live from Bakki.

More due to boredom and inattention than anything, I did a really stupid thing in the ferry terminal.  We had to wait a fair piece for the next boat, and after getting thrilled on the seawall, there was nothing more to do but eavesdrop on the mysterious international football players in the lobby.  Their presence there made no sense.  There were men from more than two continents, switching among at least four languages that I could distinguish, and half of them were wearing their kit.  Obviously a team, headed to what?  Play in the rain on Heimaey?

Derek amused himself with the talking Icelandic robot vending machine.  Feed it a Visa card and let it serve you!  So what with all the entertainment, when time rolled around to move upstairs to load in, I just walked away from my journal notebook that I’d set down on the seat beside me.

I’d “prepared” for this eventuality on the transAtlantic flight by writing a heart rending appeal to anyone who might find it, should I lose it, to return it to me, and including every scrap of contact info possible.

From past experience, I know that on a big trip like this, the stimulation barrage is completely overwhelming, and I have to furiously empty my brain’s short-term storage onto paper every night to save the day’s  points of interest.  Either my RAM’s not adequate or I absorb too much to hold – I don’t know, but I have to do this.  In two weeks, I just will not remember the way we heard a horse whinny from the back of a horse trailer traveling the other direction at 100kmh.  It sounded like a horse traveling supersonically.  And I remember that because I write it down, see?  Horse whinnied.  So, the notebook I store all these little sensation triggers in is indescribably valuable to me, and I’d said so on the inside cover of this one.  Of course, I’d only put two days in it so far.

I seem to have a thing with losing small notebooks filled with really precious stuff, but I always get them back.  No big whoop, I thought when I missed it after the boat took off.  We’d be going right back through the same place on the way back; I’d pick it up then.

There was a wee bit of a sea on for our crossing.  Derek took an insurance Gravol and I don’t get seasick, so we snickered good at ourselves and everyone else lurching tentatively around, tumbling sideways from one handhold to another, more often than not just running into the opposite wall, oh! and then the first wall again, oh!….

There was a contingent of “I will survive”s clinging to posts at the fore of the cabin, staring unblinkingly at the mostly invisible horizon with clenched jaws as the bow heaved up and down.  And the soccer team was roaming around in shorts and socks, squawking in many languages at getting tossed around and at the sideways rain outside.  My mouth hurt from laughing.

Disgorged onto Heimaey (no idea where the footballers disappeared to), the rain and fog and wind somewhat influenced our unanimous decision to not camp for the night, made very quickly at the door of the first hostel we passed.  Thrilled with that moment of brilliance, we left our gear and ventured out in full rain garb to see Heimaey on foot.

“See” turned out to be far too strong a word.  The fog was Maritime too.  Half way up Helgafell, logic kicked in and we asked “for what do we climb?”  We could barely see where we were going, enough to recognize it as an incline, but if we continued to the top, we’d only know it was the top because there was no higher ground.  Were we climbing to have done it, or for the view?

We  “saw” most of Heimaey in the next few hours just like Helgafell- a short ways ahead of us at a time.  In this way, we saw some horses, saw some farms as we trespassed through them, saw the landfill, saw more football pitches than make sense for such a small island, all empty (where was that team headed?) and saw a lot of hraun.  Hraun = lava.

We pretty much had no idea where we were, and vaguely wandered back into town after getting really, really wet.  Wet doesn’t really translate in photos, but rain drives in through zippers and drips off your face down your neck and hair, and leeches up your sleeves inside the jacket from bare hands, and the whole protective shell you’re wearing delivers all the water you get in the way of down to your boots, where it keeps trying until it breaches whatever waterproofing is making an effort there, promptly turns your boots into small swamp replicas and starts climbing your socks, going “that’s right, we’re gonna get your pants too.”

We rainchecked the bird cliffs, since it seemed a little bit dim to go walking around looking for deadly dropoffs in low visibility, and went back to the hostel to “dry out”.  We’ll get you later, puffins.  “Dry out”- also too strong a phrase.  Cranking the radiator to its cautionary max and opening a window to let out the steam only raised the ambient humidity to about equal the outdoors.  But we warmed up, and ate dinner, gathered info (no one had seen puffins today; forecast for tomorrow was more of same), and started a load of laundry.

The promise of the same weather tomorrow meant we may as well go out again tonight to hunt the puffins and then leave tomorrow am for bluer skies.  So, back into dry first layers and wet outer layers and back into the dusk in a different direction, hunting puffins.  A long trudge, featuring more soccer pitches and more weird sculpture.

We found them!  We found the puffins!  We found all the puffins that were left, I think.  About a dozen of them.  They were cute, and entertaining, and brightly sleek in spite of the totally grey conditions.  I got the impression that the paltry few that were left were just saying their last goodbyes, that they were taking off for their final flights that very night.

Anti-climactic doesn’t quite cover it.  After all that trudging around thinking about my boots being from Squornshellous Zeta, by the time we saw the damn puffins, it was like Thank God, now we can go fall into bed.  Puffins, check.  Now can I be dry?

We snuck up on them very carefully and… these were the best pictures we got.

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Day 14 – Westfjords: Látrabjarg

We slept in on our first morning on the Westfjords, awakened at 9 by keener tourists driving slowly by on the rocky road towards Látrabjarg.  We joined them at the bird cliffs after breakfast.  Látrabjarg is a renowned area for seasonal nesting birds, where they congregate in the thousands on the sheer cliffs of the jutting fjords.

We took our time, and leisurely walked along the cliff edge that juts up at a defiant angle towards the sea.  It was sunny, warm and clear, and we relaxed, lounging in the grass looking over the edge of the cliffs (me), and staying well back from the edge taking birds-in-flight pictures (my brother). It was another site of powerful natural magic, which I was coming to recognize now by my intense desire to fall asleep and dream there.

Closer to the parking area there was higher visitor traffic and more impatient tourists here to see and then leave, asap.  I was astounded by the nerve or idiocy of some people, striding to where the sod curls over the edge and leaning over for a look at the birds clinging to the cracks in the rock.  There were no ropes or guardrails (of course), and over the edge was a 400′ drop to certain death.  Seeing some people being so cavalier with the risk made my stomach lurch, and it seemed no wonder that a German tourist was said to have recently fallen over. That accident was also said to have sparked discussion on whether or not to install guardrails or limitations.  I hope they haven’t.

At least I had the sense to get down on my belly and elbow out to the edge to look over, not just lean out.  Some people!  And that’s where I was, down on my belly, when I saw the puffin!

The current tenants dominating the cliffs were guillemots, whose little white bodies speckled the black rocks, as did their droppings.  They were perched in lively groups and pairs on every available foothold, grooming, dozing, and defending their territory.  Everywhere you looked, there was drama and action, and it was all noisy, the juveniles crying constantly to be fed, a cloud of sound drifting up from the folds of the fjords.

So I was on my belly, and just happened to be looking in the right place to see the one tiny black puffin among all the guillemots swoop in with a mouthful of silver fish spilling over her bright beak and disappear under the sod curled over the cliff’s lip just a few feet away.

I hollered and gesticulated madly at my brother across the fjord, and although I could see the exact place she’d disappeared into, we didn’t catch sight of her leaving.  It was way past puffin season now, and this late bird and her brood were probably doomed, but it was still an exciting sighting.

On the drive out, we stopped at Hnjótur for some delicious waffles, and then drove on to Patreksfjörður, Cheryl driving now so that I could catch up on my travel notes in my little yellow book. We went straight to the swimming pool, which we had to ourselves in midday, and we napped in the pool, bathing in crystal clear 42 degree water, warm sunshine, and a view of infinity.  I highly recommend the pool at Patreksfjörður, even just for the view.

After some groceries at the tiny store and some gas, we took off for Dynjandi.  With a few stops for views on the way, we reached the spectacular waterfall in the early evening.  It’s an incredible cascade waterfall the kind that is so wide and grand it’s impossible to fit it into a picture, let alone represent the scope of it, and it was set in a huge blueberry field.   It was exactly blueberry season, and I wandered barefoot in the sometimes swampy and scratchy bushy hills and ate blueberries until I was full.

At the base of the hill, there was  a herd of Icelandic horses picturesquely plunked in an emerald pasture with a background to die for and a low sun providing dream lighting.  Derek spent some time seeking the “quintessential Icelandic horse picture”.

This was such a glorious location, we unanimously decided to camp here for the night.  The campground was busy, and like the book said, promised to be loud, but the surroundings were more than worth it.   However, first there was  a sunset to be chased.  Dynjandi is a low spot, and we could see the road winding uphill again around the high mountain/walls of the fjord.  Derek wanted a vantage point to shoot the sunset, and we had to move fast.

Driving as fast as I comfortably could, we passed some seals in the bay, and then climbed up over the peninsula.  We drove through an absolute moonscape, a desolate, green-less field (possibly the Gláma moors?).  Near the top of the climb, sobered by the bleak surroundings, we suddenly encountered a group of sheep near the road, and we all burst out laughing,  “Of course!” and “Even here, there’s sheep!”  This proved definitively that sheep get around, truly everywhere in Iceland (Hornstrandir excepted).  the sheep looked a good deal more at home in this moonscape than we felt.

Although we thought we’d missed the good sunset, we were closer to Þingeyri now than turning back to Dynjandi, so we pressed on.  As we summitted the pass, we chanced upon a shocking red red and apricot sunset.  Awesome!  It lasted only for moments, but we caught it, once again feeling the magic of being the only people to see that scene, in that transitory moment.

Driving on downhill in the darkening dusk now, I musingly commented “I want to sleep on a mountaintop tonight”.  No sooner had I said it than a turnoff  appeared and I swung into it.  Place names will be deliberately hazy for awhile now to protect the identity of our location;)

On the dirt road up the hill, we encountered the strangest birds waddling on the road ahead of the car.  They were too big to be quail, too upright to be grouse, and they waddled quick like penguins.  Dodo birds came to mind.  They were just utterly mysterious, and of course we could get no photo evidence or clues of colouring in the dark before they turned off into the brush.

We parked and walked to the top of the hill, which was serene and slightly breezy, with a view of the lights of a small town far below us.  The summit was narrow and long, and we could see the ripples of mountain ridges, varying shades of ink in the full moonlight, for nearly 360degrees, and we could see to the ocean.  The sky was spectacular.  I casually asked if anyone else wanted to sleep right here, and was surprised that Cheryl eagerly pounced on the idea.

Derek made it clear he thought we were both crazy, by now a familiar motif.  We talked him into it and overcame his objections.  I set up my tent for him (better in the wind and less dependent on pegs in the hard dirt of the mountaintop), and he retired with the food bag.  Cheryl and I chose to sleep open air, and she chose a deluxe location on a mattress-sized tuft of grass and moss that she declared simply luxurious and promptly fell asleep on.

I moved down the slope a little, tossed my thermarest on a patch of moss, and nestled down in my sleeping bag.  Then I had a princess and the pea moment with my choice of bedding.  My first choice didn’t seem quite right, so I hopped around in my sleeping bag like some demented one-man sack race and scooting my thermarest around to try other spots of moss.  Eventually I returned to the first spot and found it perfect.

For more photos from this day, visit the Extra Photos

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