Day 14 in the Land Where Molten Lava Eats Neighborhoods

It's day 14 in the Land Where Lava Eats Neighborhoods.

This morning was another day of fun and surprises. We left our crappy hotel early in the morning for what we thought was an 8:30 a.m. departure of a ship we'd scheduled to take us to Heimaey, an island off the south coast. 

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One of us misread the schedule, as we arrived at 8:00 and the loading port was locked with nobody around. Hmmm. So Jane looked up in her notes that the departure was for 10:30 instead. So we napped in the car while we waited. That same somebody then proceeded to leave her water bottle in the car. But then, so odd your chagrined fearless reporter. OOPS!

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The boat is a conventional ship rather than a double-ended ferry. The trip takes 1/2 hour across the open ocean. Interestingly, the coast in this area is flat as a pancake, but Heimaey is a volcanic island and much of it is steep and rugged. We sailed across the short distance, perhaps 10 kilometers, on choppy seas, with the big ship being surprisingly tossed about. We entered the harbor maneuvering around huge cliffs. The harbor is tiny, almost not enough room for the ship to steer to the dock. We disembarked, wondering where to go and what to do. We found plenty!

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We first went to a tourism information office doubling as a cafe where Jane had a hot chocolate and I took advantage of free internet service to post Day 13's blog. We then walked the commercial street. Every building was two stories tall, housing stores both unfamiliar and familiar, like Subway and Cell company Vodaphone. We bound a nice craft store and set aside several items we wanted to buy, including our obligatory trip souvenir, a rectangular shaped clear glass plate with the image of two puffins impregnated in it. The proprietress had just opened her shop a few months earlier, telling us, "I had always wanted a shop like this to sell locally made handcrafts." She lined up a taxi to take us to the far side of the harbor. We looked among the cliffs for puffins as we had a nice picnic in the grass, overlooking the crashing sea. There were gulls, cormorants, and eider ducks, but no puffins. We walked back towards town and I climbed a small, steep mountain pass to take in the view. It was splendid, overlooking the busy harbor and the upper end of the surprisingly large town, at least for this part of Iceland. 

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We hiked back into town and paid admission to visit a natural history museum. There were 10 or so large aquariums with different fish and sea creatures in them, including catfish (much different than at home), wolf fish, and "flat" fish like flounder and halibut. They also had a live puffin that lived in the museum almost as a pet. He was a cute little guy, and I held him in my hands and brushed his feathers. I expected his feathers to be different somehow from "regular" birds, given the great ability puffins have to swim, but they felt much the same. He was surprisingly tame and didn't mind being held or stroked. He had been rescued in a storm and taken there. He had a tank where he could swim, but he preferred feeding from the keepers over catching his own fish in the tank. It was a peaceful place and we rested for awhile. 

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On our way to our next stop, we struck up a conversation with an American from Port Angeles, Washington, named Chris Duff. Get this: Chris had friggin' ROWED there from the Faroe Islands!!! As in rowed in a rowboat. A free-spirited world traveler, Chris was an expert at sea kayaking and had recently taken up open ocean rowing. We agreed to have dinner together later on.

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Jane went back to the souvenir shop but I continued my exploration on an increasingly sore right foot that I think I may have broken. (I don't want to talk about it.) I walked to the northeast side of town where there was a massive lava field, the result of a volcanic eruption only 40 years ago, back in the 1970s. It had literally swept through part of town, frying several homes along its way. I'm told that when you have a mass of molten lava coming your way, your only option is to get out of the way. There was a memorial sign for some type of civic lodge like a Masonic Hall that was at that point 16 meters below the current lava surface. The eruption occurred in January and the entire island was evacuated for the next six months. The population dropped from around 6000 to today's 4000, as many never returned and there are homes that still have a lava field literally in the back yard (albeit somewhat cooler now). 

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Jane and I walked to the waterfront where we found Chris again, tending to some of his gear, drying his sleeping bag and other items in the sun on the metal walkway. He patiently answered my dozens of questions about the boat and his travels in it. The boat was around 6 meters long, a meter wide, with a front "cabin" large enough for him to stretch out and sleep inside (and cook on stormy days) and a smaller one in the back for storing his gear. He had two pair of oars that were surprisingly long and light in weight. He had a small sail overhead, currently stowed away. The boat had a rudder he could move with a line from his sliding seat. He was carrying several large  bags of drinking water that also acted as ballast. He had an emergency beacon that he could use to radio for help if he needed it and a GPS to keep track of where he was at all times. 

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So where did he cook? He carried a backpacker's JetBoil stove, much like I use when I hike. Where did he pee? Into the ocean. Where did he poop? Onto a frisbee that he then dumped overboard. Etc. On a good day, he could row 20 miles, on a bad day 6, progress measured only by an electronic line on a GPS, as a day's labor in mid-ocean produces a view no different in any way than the beginning.

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He was a trim, bald man we guessed to be in his late fifties. He had written two books about his adventures and had them published by a prestigious publishing house. He was a fascinating guy, thoughtful and insightful, and we liked him immediately. I like to think I'm as adventurous as the next guy, but I'm not, at least not as adventurous as Chris.

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So what's it like crossing a featureless ocean in a rowboat in the North Atlantic? The weather can be awful, and storms can whip waves over the side of the boat at any time. The water is ice-cold. If you get seasick, you're screwed and you simply deal with it. You go for days without seeing or communicating with anyone. You face backwards, rowing long oars while seated on a constantly sliding, lightly-padded seat and your hands are fully blistered. 

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There is almost no darkness, so you can row as many hours in a day as your body can endure. There is no sign of land, only ocean. Gannets. Seagulls. Occasional whales. He told us a story where he once saw two tiny red orbs bobbing in the water. He rowed towards them and they turned out to be apples. So he ate them. 

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We walked together to a restaurant in town where for the first time in my life I ate whale meat, from a minke whale. (I know this is politically incorrect, but minkes are not endangered and hey, we eat wild deer, right?) The meat was dark purple and resembled a veal tenderloin, only darker, somewhat chewy, completely fat free and it was delicious! Jane, Chris and I spent almost two hours together discussing our misadventures, including his helicopter rescue when his kayak was destroyed in a storm on the remote, mountainous southwest coast of New Zealand (which cost him a mere $300 INCLUDING carrying his broken kayak, in contrast to my only helicopter rescue from the Cascade Mountains of Washington when I broke my ankle backpacking that cost me $10,000!). He does carpentry work when he's at home and his wife of eight years is a nurse at an eye clinic. He wants to take her bicycling in Ireland, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands. 

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We agreed that once we got home, we would exchange books to read, so I'm looking forward to that. I'm guessing he's an excellent storyteller. 

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We exchanged hugs and parted, with him saying that if the weather was favorable, he may awake at 2:30 a.m. to row across to the Icelandic "mainland". "I go whenever the time is right," he said. My mind was left to imagine what it may be like to row across a glassy ocean in the middle of the sub-arctic night with the sun rising on the eastern horizon, looking at where you've been, oars gently pushing the sea back. 

We boarded the ferry once again and headed back to our crappy hotel while he returned to his sleeping bag in the tiny cabin of his rowboat. The ferry ride ended quickly.   Our drive was beautiful, the low sun casting glows on the towering cliffs of black and green alongside the road. It was a calm, warm, partly-cloudy, pleasant evening, as nice as any we'd this far experienced. 

Day 14
It's day 14 in the Land Where Lava Eats Neighborhoods.This morning was another day of fun and surprises. We left our crappy hotel early in the morning for what we thought was an 8:30 a.m. departure of a ship we'd scheduled to take us to Heimaey, an island off the south coast. .One of us misread the schedule, as we arrived at 8:00 and the loading port was locked with nobody around. Hmmm. So Jane looked up in her notes that the departure was for 10:30 instead. So we napped in the car while we waited. That same somebody then proceeded to leave her water bottle in the car. But then, so odd your chagrined fearless reporter. OOPS!.The boat is a conventional ship rather than a double-ended ferry. The trip takes 1/2 hour across the open ocean. Interestingly, the coast in this area is flat as a pancake, but Heimaey is a volcanic island and much of it is steep and rugged. We sailed across the short distance, perhaps 10 kilometers, on choppy seas, with the big ship being surprisingly tossed about. We entered the harbor maneuvering around huge cliffs. The harbor is tiny, almost not enough room for the ship to steer to the dock. We disembarked, wondering where to go and what to do. We found plenty!.We first went to a tourism information office doubling as a cafe where Jane had a hot chocolate and I took advantage of free internet service to post Day 13's blog. We then walked the commercial street. Every building was two stories tall, housing stores both unfamiliar and familiar, like Subway and Cell company Vodaphone. We bound a nice craft store and set aside several items we wanted to buy, including our obligatory trip souvenir, a rectangular shaped clear glass plate with the image of two puffins impregnated in it. The proprietress had just opened her shop a few months earlier, telling us, "I had always wanted a shop like this to sell locally made handcrafts." She lined up a taxi to take us to the far side of the harbor. We looked among the cliffs for puffins as we had a nice picnic in the grass, overlooking the crashing sea. There were gulls, cormorants, and eider ducks, but no puffins. We walked back towards town and I climbed a small, steep mountain pass to take in the view. It was splendid, overlooking the busy harbor and the upper end of the surprisingly large town, at least for this part of Iceland. . We hiked back into town and paid admission to visit a natural history museum. There were 10 or so large aquariums with different fish and sea creatures in them, including catfish (much different than at home), wolf fish, and "flat" fish like flounder and halibut. They also had a live puffin that lived in the museum almost as a pet. He was a cute little guy, and I held him in my hands and brushed his feathers. I expected his feathers to be different somehow from "regular" birds, given the great ability puffins have to swim, but they felt much the same. He was surprisingly tame and didn't mind being held or stroked. He had been rescued in a storm and taken there. He had a tank where he could swim, but he preferred feeding from the keepers over catching his own fish in the tank. It was a peaceful place and we rested for awhile. .On our way to our next stop, we struck up a conversation with an American from Port Angeles, Washington, named Chris Duff. Get this: Chris had friggin' ROWED there from the Faroe Islands!!! As in rowed in a rowboat. A free-spirited world traveler, Chris was an expert at sea kayaking and had recently taken up open ocean rowing. We agreed to have dinner together later on..Jane went back to the souvenir shop but I continued my exploration on an increasingly sore right foot that I think I may have broken. (I don't want to talk about it.) I walked to the northeast side of town where there was a massive lava field, the result of a volcanic eruption only 40 years ago, back in the 1970s. It had literally swept through part of town, frying several homes along its way. I'm told that when you have a mass of molten lava coming your way, your only option is to get out of the way. There was a memorial sign for some type of civic lodge like a Masonic Hall that was at that point 16 meters below the current lava surface. The eruption occurred in January and the entire island was evacuated for the next six months. The population dropped from around 6000 to today's 4000, as many never returned and there are homes that still have a lava field literally in the back yard (albeit somewhat cooler now). .Jane and I walked to the waterfront where we found Chris again, tending to some of his gear, drying his sleeping bag and other items in the sun on the metal walkway. He patiently answered my dozens of questions about the boat and his travels in it. The boat was around 6 meters long, a meter wide, with a front "cabin" large enough for him to stretch out and sleep inside (and cook on stormy days) and a smaller one in the back for storing his gear. He had two pair of oars that were surprisingly long and light in weight. He had a small sail overhead, currently stowed away. The boat had a rudder he could move with a line from his sliding seat. He was carrying several large  bags of drinking water that also acted as ballast. He had an emergency beacon that he could use to radio for help if he needed it and a GPS to keep track of where he was at all times. .So where did he cook? He carried a backpacker's JetBoil stove, much like I use when I hike. Where did he pee? Into the ocean. Where did he poop? Onto a frisbee that he then dumped overboard. Etc. On a good day, he could row 20 miles, on a bad day 6, progress measured only by an electronic line on a GPS, as a day's labor in mid-ocean produces a view no different in any way than the beginning..He was a trim, bald man we guessed to be in his late fifties. He had written two books about his adventures and had them published by a prestigious publishing house. He was a fascinating guy, thoughtful and insightful, and we liked him immediately. I like to think I'm as adventurous as the next guy, but I'm not, at least not as adventurous as Chris..So what's it like crossing a featureless ocean in a rowboat in the North Atlantic? The weather can be awful, and storms can whip waves over the side of the boat at any time. The water is ice-cold. If you get seasick, you're screwed and you simply deal with it. You go for days without seeing or communicating with anyone. You face backwards, rowing long oars while seated on a constantly sliding, lightly-padded seat and your hands are fully blistered. .There is almost no darkness, so you can row as many hours in a day as your body can endure. There is no sign of land, only ocean. Gannets. Seagulls. Occasional whales. He told us a story where he once saw two tiny red orbs bobbing in the water. He rowed towards them and they turned out to be apples. So he ate them. . We walked together to a restaurant in town where for the first time in my life I ate whale meat, from a minke whale. (I know this is politically incorrect, but minkes are not endangered and hey, we eat wild deer, right?) The meat was dark purple and resembled a veal tenderloin, only darker, somewhat chewy, completely fat free and it was delicious! Jane, Chris and I spent almost two hours together discussing our misadventures, including his helicopter rescue when his kayak was destroyed in a storm on the remote, mountainous southwest coast of New Zealand (which cost him a mere $300 INCLUDING carrying his broken kayak, in contrast to my only helicopter rescue from the Cascade Mountains of Washington when I broke my ankle backpacking that cost me $10,000!). He does carpentry work when he's at home and his wife of eight years is a nurse at an eye clinic. He wants to take her bicycling in Ireland, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands. .We agreed that once we got home, we would exchange books to read, so I'm looking forward to that. I'm guessing he's an excellent storyteller. .We exchanged hugs and parted, with him saying that if the weather was favorable, he may awake at 2:30 a.m. to row across to the Icelandic "mainland". "I go whenever the time is right," he said. My mind was left to imagine what it may be like to row across a glassy ocean in the middle of the sub-arctic night with the sun rising on the eastern horizon, looking at where you've been, oars gently pushing the sea back. 
We boarded the ferry once again and headed back to our crappy hotel while he returned to his sleeping bag in the tiny cabin of his rowboat. The ferry ride ended quickly.   Our drive was beautiful, the low sun casting glows on the towering cliffs of black and green alongside the road. It was a calm, warm, partly-cloudy, pleasant evening, as nice as any we'd this far experienced.