Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.07.2011, Blaðsíða 40

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CONSTABLE POINT
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“We went across the country and the Arctic Circle,
saw amazing birds, visited the
capital of the North, and came
back again in around seven
hours
39
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 9 — 2011
Words
S. Alessio Tummolillo
Photography
Julia Staples
Travel | Grímsey
Grímsey: There And Back Again
A trip to Grímsey—Iceland’s northern-
most island—from Reykjavík seems
less than appealing at first. In order
to get there, you have to traverse an
entire country, to stand on this micro-
island with its approximately 100 in-
habitants. Would accommodations
need to be secured? Would I need
Dramamine for the ferry ride over?
The answers to these questions were
rather surprising.
AIR TRAVEL: SURPRISINGLY
EASY
This particular bird watching tour of
Grímsey is operated by Air Iceland, so
we naturally embarked from Reykja-
vík airport (which is conveniently lo-
cated right in downtown Reykjavík) to
get to the island. Domestic air travel
in Iceland is nothing like the air travel
I have known through my years. My
anxieties of getting to the airport ear-
ly enough to check in, going through
security and making it to the gate be-
fore it closed turned out to be entirely
unfounded.
A domestic flight in Iceland seems
more akin to taking the bus (except
the planes are usually on time). The
tour ticket recommended we show up
half an hour before takeoff. Waiting in
line to get on the plane at Reykjavík
Airport, people were checking in five
minutes before the scheduled take
off and just stepping into line to get
on the plane. There is probably no
other place on Earth where air travel
is so easy.
The plane we got on was of the
smaller variety. This had me nervous,
as it is often said that small planes
experience the worst turbulence. But
this plane ride was one of the smooth-
est I’ve ever been on. And after this
one-hour flight, there’s another
forty-five minute flight to Grímsey in
an even smaller, 21-passenger plane
(the number is deceiving, because it
felt like it could barely fit the ten pas-
sengers that were on the plane). That
flight was equally smooth.
ARCTIC EQUATOR AND PUFFIN
CUTENESS AHOY
As soon as we were off the plane, our
guide to the bird watching tour was
there to greet us. Before we began
any bird watching, we were led to a
sign with the name of the island, and
there were different arrows jutting out
from the sign which had the names
of major cities on them and how far
away they are. This pole marks the
line where the Arctic Circle is. Once
we crossed the pole, we were offi-
cially north of the Arctic Circle, and
we got certificates to prove it.
On the trip, there are three sepa-
rate puffin colonies that can be vis-
ited. Grímsey houses thirty different
species of birds, but the two we got to
see were the Arctic Tern, as it made
attempts to bat at our heads (no inju-
ries sustained, they didn’t even really
get that close), and the puffin. There
were a lot of puffins there, and at the
third colony one visits, it’s possible to
get quite close to them. We learned
that the puffin has been leaving the
southern part of Iceland and heading
on up to Grímsey in greater numbers,
due to the warmer weather down
south. For this reason, our guide be-
lieves that Grímsey may soon house
the island’s largest puffin population
(in fact, we were told that around
300.000 puffin reside on Grímsey at
this very moment).
Apparently, the puffins all eat at
the same time too. Our guide, the
knowledgeable Katla Ásgeirsdóttir,
told us that at times if the airplane
is delayed, people will arrive at the
cliffs only to see just a few puffins,
because they all fly out to the water
to find food at the same time. This
seems like it could be very frustrat-
ing for bird watching tours as well as
pretty embarrassing for tour guides.
LAYOVER IN AKUREYRI
After stopping at the three puffin col-
onies, we return to the micro-plane
for the journey back to Reykjavík.
On the way back, though, there is an
hour and a half layover in Akureyri,
where you can spend your time sit-
ting in the airport or take a cab into
town and look around. You will have
enough time to do this. The photog-
rapher and I stopped in at Brynju
ís, which is purportedly the best ice
cream shop outside Reykjavík, and
even stopped at the church to take
the ‘Akureyri challenge’, making it
back in time for the flight. This is a
good chance to optimise your time in
Iceland and truly round out the trip.
The flight to Grímsey left at 10:30
and we arrived home by around
17:30. We went across the country
and the Arctic Circle, saw amazing
birds, visited the capital of the North,
and came back again in around sev-
en hours. Talk about using the time
a tourist has in Iceland to its fullest
potential!
The ‘Beyond the Arctic Circle’ tour runs from June 15 to August 20, it costs a total of 30.796 ISK from Reykjavík
or 21.316 ISK from Akureyri. It can be booked at www.airiceland.is or by calling: 570-3000
A true tourist’s tale