Day 188-visiting Heimaey

   July 10-The wind died down during the night and we woke to sunny skies this morning.  Everyone seemed pleased with the sleeping arrangements last night, so we decided to start letting the kids take turns sleeping in the van during the rest of their grandparents’ visit.  We got up the morning and lazily ate breakfast and packed up the camping equipment.

Our camp at Álfaskeið.

Mt. Hekla, one of the two known entry points to Hell, looms over our campsite to the east.

   We then drove to Landeyjahöfn to catch the ferry to Heimaey in the Vestmanneyjar, or “Home Island in the Westmen Islands.”  “Westmen” is the old Viking term for “Irish,” who lived on the westernmost landmass known to the Vikings until they settled Iceland.  Many Irish were brought to Iceland as slaves and some of these slaves killed their master during the first few years of the Settlement era.  The dead master was the brother-in-law of the first settler, Ingólfur Arnarson, who discovered the deed soon after it occurred.  He gathered his men and followed the slaves to Heimaey, where he and his retinue slaughtered them all.  Since the “westmen” had sought refuge in these islands, they became the Westmen Islands.


Heimaey as seen from Landeyjahöfn.

Sally and kids pose on the boat
with the infamous Eyjafjallajökull behind them.

   We had hoped to take the vehicles with us to the island so we could camp there overnight.  However, we were forced to put the vehicles on the waiting list.  At the last moment, space became available, so we bought the vehicle tickets and headed to the ship.  The Corolla drove right on, but Sally was informed that the van was too tall and would not be allowed on the ship.  So, we got across with one vehicle.  This was not ideal, but it did allow most of us to be driven around the island.

We passed Elliðaey island, enroute to Heimaey.

Next we sailed by Bjarmarey.

We finally passed by the cliffs at the entrance of the harbor on Heimaey.

From left to right, we see the old lava on the north side of harbor entrance, the passage into the harbor, Bjarmarey, the new lava from the 1973 eruption, Eldfell, which is the cinder cone that formed in 1973, Helgafell, which is the island's old volcano, and Heimaey Town.

In the museum, Spencer demonstrates the method
whereby islanders hunt and catch puffins.

   We ate dinner and then visited the folk museum.  In so many ways, it seems that the history of the island is mostly tragic.  First, there was the slaughter of the wayward slaves.   Second, the islanders have primarily depended upon fishing for their livelihoods and it was quite common to lose large numbers of men to accidents at sea.  In a couple notable cases, nearly the entire adult male population of the island was wiped out.  Third, in the 15^th and 17^th centuries Algerian pirates/slavers raided the island and other parts of Iceland as well. The final raid in 1627 was particularly terrible.  The pirates raped and murdered their way across Heimaey, locked the elderly in a house, which they burnt down, and abducted 242 people, who were sold into slavery.  When they were done, only 200 of the 500 islanders remained alive, having hidden in caves in the island cliffs.
   Fourth, disaster of a more natural origin occurred more recently.  A couple small earthquakes in March, 1973 were followed in a couple hours by the opening of a vent less than a mile from the island’s harbor and town.  For over a month, lava and ash spewed from the vent.  As the eruption proceeded, portions of the vent became blocked until only one exit point remained open.  This is the location that a new mountain, Eldfell, formed on the island.  Ash covered the eastern portions of the town and flowing lava destroyed the northern portion and threatened to close off the port.  The Icelanders came up with an ingenious solution, however.  They parked ships in the harbor entrance and sprayed cold seawater on the advancing lava, causing it to cool.  In this way, they kept the harbor from closing up.  In fact, the harbor ended up even better protected than it had been before the eruption.  However, 400 homes were lost and another 400 were damaged, so the eruption took a heavy toll on the town.

These "before and after" pictures show the changes the 1973 eruption wrought on Heimaey.

  Since we had only one car with us, we could not all travel together.  So, after dinner Shan took off on a wander-about of the island, while the rest of the group stuffed themselves into the car and headed over to the Stave Church.  It is a medieval, wooden, Scandinavian-style church and was built in two days in 2000 from material sent from Norway as a gift to the islanders.

The signs point to the locations of houses that lined the
street that used to exist where Sally and the girls are.

   They next drove over to Pompei of the North.  This is the location where work is underway to excavate one of the streets and its houses that were covered by ash in the 1973 eruption.  Since these houses were hit by ash, not by lava, they did not burn, but collapsed under the weight of the small rocks that fell on them like snow.  Some of the upper stories are coming into view at this point, so there was not much to see of the houses, but it was more impressive to note how deep the ash had fallen and buried the houses!

Puffin burrows.


   From there, they drove around the island and to its southern tip to visit the sea cliffs in the hopes of seeing puffins.  Much to Alex’s chagrin, they had no luck, but they did see some beautiful views.

This frozen lava looks remarkably like taffy.

The plaque states that the building it is
memoralizing lies 130 feet below the lava.



   Shan also visited Pompei of the North and then climbed Eldfell.  The views were wonderful and it allowed him to get a better feel for the effect the eruption had on the island’s geography.  He next wandered through the Nýjahraun, or new lava (to distinguish it from the “old lava” that existed prior to the 1973 eruption), over the tops of houses destroyed by the lava flow.  In some locations people have put up memorials to their houses that lay up to 300 feet below the current surface!

The advancing lava only partially destroyed this concrete water cistern in 1973 before the eruption ceased. 

The ferry Herjólfur disgorges its passenger and vehicles
back at Landeyjahöfn; thankfully, that included all of us!

   We all met up again at 7:30pm at the dock to get the car back on the waiting list for the final ferry back to the mainland.  There were a lot more cars loading onto the ferry, so we figured that the car would be stranded on the island overnight.  Consequently, we unloaded bags from the car and everyone except Shan boarded the ferry.

   Fortuitously, a spot remained open for a small car on the upper deck, and the vehicles ahead of ours on the waitlist were SUVs, so Shan bought the car ticket and hurried onto the ferry.  We have never been so happy to be driving a small car, rather than our larger vehicles back in the States!  Back at Landeyjahöfn, we disembarked and drove north to our campsite at Langbrók, east of Hvollsvöllur.  By the time we pitched our tent above the brook, ate supper, and showered, it was nearly midnight, so we hit the sack.

When it looks like this at midnight, you know it's not going to be dark in the tent!