Iceland’s Westman Islands: Land of Puffins

If the fog, as Carl Sandburg tells us, comes “on little cat feet” over harbor and city, then it surely arrives in Iceland on the paws of a lion. As we sailed through the Westman Islands, a small archipelago off Iceland’s southern coast, the view from our balcony was a thick foggy blur between land and sky.

The Seabourn Sojourn was anchoring off Heimaey (pronounced Hey’-ma-ey), the largest and only inhabited Westman Island. Known for having the world’s largest puffin colony, as well as a volcano that catastrophically erupted in 1973, Heimaey also lays claim to the “windiest place in Europe.”

Herb and I had booked the Puffin and Volcano Tour with Ebbi, a local guide who offers small group excursions covering the island’s highlights, including the infamous puffin nesting spot. We rode the ship’s tender for the short journey into town before the tour, crossing our fingers that the shroud covering the island wouldn’t dampen our day.

Our Tour Begins

When your tour guide boards the minibus holding a baby puffin, you quickly get the feeling that it’s going to be a great day. The affable Ebbi told us that his family had rescued the puffling – as the babies are called – the previous evening and would be releasing it into the ocean. Pufflings, he explained, take their first flights from Heimaey’s cliffs in the dark of night to avoid predators, guided by moonlight. They sometimes mistake the town’s lights for the moon, landing on streets instead of the sea. Local children and volunteers search for pufflings late at night, scooping them up into cardboard boxes for safekeeping until morning.

Ebbi went on to assure us that we would be seeing puffins on the tour. Althugh many puffins had already left Heimaey for the winter, he said there was still a large colony on the nesting cliffs. I had read that you should arrive here by mid-August if you want to see puffins. And this was mid-August. By September, Ebbi told us, all the puffins will have left until next spring, and he closes this portion of his tours.

Sprangan

With the puffling safely back in his box off the bus, Ebbi drove to our first stop of the tour where locals learn how to gather wild bird eggs from nests in a sport called sprangan. Similar to cliff rappelling, sprangan involves scaling and swinging in the rocks, maneuvering from ledge to ledge, searching for eggs. “We’ve been collecting eggs for a thousand years,” Ebbi explained, “always making sure to leave two if there are only three or four in the nest.”

And then, without missing a beat, he jumped on a rock, grabbed the supended rope, and demonstrated how it’s done.

Viking Town

As he drove, Ebbi talked about life in the Westman Islands. Everyone is connected to fishing, he told us, and everyone has a nickname. Ebbi, of course, is his. He has spent his entire life in this town of about 4,500 people and is a strong advocate for its tourism. “It’s critical to have a hobby,” he explained, “when you live in such an isolated place with extreme weather.”

Ebbi’s most recent project is Viking Town, a replica of Iceland’s first stone house based on an archaeological excavation found nearby. The Viking turf houses recreate the life of the first family that lived in Heimaey around AD 900. Wax figures inside represent real people, Ebbi emphasized, with their stories displayed on placards around the room.

The Puffins at Stórhöfdi

Heimaey is host to the world’s largest breeding colony of Atlantic puffins, with about 1.5 million calling the rocky cliffs of Stórhöfdi – also known as Great Cape – home during their breeding season. Puffin pairs build nests in burrows beneath the soil and return to the same spot every year, typically staying with the same partner for their entire lives. Both parents raise their single chick together.

We headed up a wire-covered dirt path to the viewpoint. The area was still drenched in fog, but that was in our favor for puffin spotting, Ebbi told us. “They will be on land rather than out fishing,” he said. “You will see them!”

And see them we did, in all their orange-beaked, orange-footed splendor! I couldn’t get enough of these adorable creatures, alternating between taking photos and simply watching them. I’m not sure how long we were there, but I do know I could have stayed much longer.

The Windiest Place in Europe

The downside of all the fog was not being able to see the spectacular views that Heimaey offers. We stopped at Stórhöfdi’s “windiest place in Europe” – which ironically wasn’t windy on our visit – where Ebbi showed us a map of what we would have seen on a clear day. It was disappointing, to be sure, but also a reminder of what to expect when you travel to this part of the world. No matter the time of year, the weather gods are in charge.

Eldfell Volcano

Our final stop was Eldfell, the volcano that erupted without warning in 1973, destroying more than 400 homes and causing all 5,300 residents to evacuate. Ebbi described what it was like to live through the eruption and how people came from all over to help pump sea water onto the lava to save the harbor. Many people left Heimaey to start new lives in other parts of Iceland, he told us, but a large number of families returned to rebuild their homes in the place they loved.

Eldfell is still classified as an active volcano.

The Little Puffling

Before the tour, Herb and I had stopped in Heimaey’s Visitor Centre. A display featuring a children’s book called The Little Puffling decorated one of the walls, with copies available in a variety of languages. The book tells the story of how children on the Westman Islands rescue pufflings and return them to the sea.

I was immediately transported back to Trømso, Norway, where we’d bought a book called Troll Olav for our two little grandsons. Troll Olav had been a big hit, and thinking that maybe The Little Puffling might be, too, we picked up a copy to bring home.

And in one of those moments that just makes you smile… at the end of the tour, Ebbi held up a children’s book he thought we might want to know about called The Little Puffling. It had been written by his uncle.