Last week started with a day-trip to Vestmannaeyjar, or the Westman Islands, an archipelago off Iceland’s southern coast that I’ve wanted to visit for a long time. Of course I did — it’s an island off an island — I’m always up for the next most isolated spot. There were a couple of things I knew about Vestmannaeyjar ahead of time: a volcanic eruption forced an evacuation in 1973 and it’s home to Europe’s largest puffin colony.
Over the last few years my interest in the islands was piqued by a few different pieces of media. The first was a movie called The Deep, a 2012 Icelandic film about the real story of a fisherman who survived a shipwreck and managed to withstand the cold of the North Atlantic for 6 hours while he swam home to Vestmannaeyjar, eventually walking dragging himself to shore and walking home across the lava fields. Great film, but hard to find.
Luckily the other two are readily available, and both about puffins. First is the 20 minute documentary Puffling (full video on Vimeo) that follows people on Vestmannaeyjar as they work to rescue baby puffins (which are called pufflings!) that get lost in the town and need to be taken back to the cliffs. And finally the New York Times Magazine writer Sam Anderson recorded a podcast about his experience of traveling to Vestmannaeyjar and rescuing pufflings. I highly recommend both.
I didn’t get a chance to save any lost pufflings, but I did get to see hundreds, if not thousands on the Stórhöfði peninsula, the southernmost tip of Heimaey island. The only experience I can compare this to was visiting Mykines island in the Faroe Islands in 2018. There, we walked amongst the burrows, watching puffins poke their heads in and out. The cliffs on Vestmannaeyjar are too steep for that, you’re looking down and across at a hill filled with burrows. But the number of puffins is noticeably greater and there is a small viewing shack that can shield you from the weather.
In general, the Westman Islands reminded so much of the Faroe Islands, especially the uninhabited rocks standing alone with a forbidding lack of shoreline. There are 16 islands in total, of which only Heimaey is occupied, but 6 others have a single hunting cabin perched on them, like an isolation look-alike contest with the Faroes’ Stóra Dímun. The southernmost island of Surtsey is brand new, having been formed by a volcanic eruption in just 1967.
I also hiked to the top of the Eldfell volcano, the one that erupted in 1973 covering the town in ash and lava. It’s an amazing view from up there, and provides a sense of scale to the eruption and destruction. What are now lava fields were once houses, and as you walk through them there are signs indicating a house, or the church, or the power plant is buried below you. The Eldheimar museum memorializes and tells the story of the eruption, and it’s incredibly well designed. The museum building itself is constructed around a house that was excavated from the ash and left in situ.
In other news, I finally completed all of the administrative tasks I’d been working on. I got my residency card, after going back to the Directorate of Immigration in person to nudge them to complete it. That opened up the ability to upgrade my phone plan to full capabilities. I also got my student ID card from the University of Iceland, which gives me access to buildings after hours and entitles me to various discounts like a half-price monthly bus pass. I also made a second trip to IKEA and a local retailer Elko, and now have pretty much everything I need for my apartment.
I’m certainly not jet lagged anymore, three weeks in, but I do feel oddly time shifted in various ways. It’s probably a combination of the time zone (4 hours ahead of Eastern) and the fact that the sun doesn’t set until midnight. It’s an awkward shift, because just as I’m looking to get some sleep the work day is ending in the US, the news recaps are available on my podcasts, and many people I know are getting off work. Also, I think my body is confused by the temperature, which is in the 50s and I’m wearing a puffy coat every day. Don’t get me wrong, I very much prefer this to sweltering heat, but my body still gets confused that it’s August.
Noted & Done
- Finished watching the Icelandic TV show Vitjanir, available with English subtitles as Fractures via Mhz.
- Finally got a coffee maker and realized how under-caffeinated I was.
- Saw Kormákur Jarl at Space Odyssey
- Went to the National Gallery of Iceland
- Tried a different public pool, which was larger than the one in my neighborhood. But the extra stuff is mostly for kids, so it doesn’t seem like a benefit to me.