Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.03.2016, Blaðsíða 18

The Westman Islands Are Alive
(Even In The Wintertime)
By REBECCA CONWAY Photos by HREFNA BJÖRG GYLFADÓTTIR
Hrefna and I stumble onto Strætó’s 53 bus at precisely 5:43 in the morning. Behind us, the Mjódd bus
station looks as if it belongs in a ‘CSI’ murder scene. The bus driver breaks the morning silence with a
booming exclamation: “Where the hell are you guys going?” When we tell him we’re taking the ferry
from Þorlákshöfn to Heimaey (“Home Island”) to do a travel article for the Reykjavík Grapevine, he
asks, genuinely curious, “They make you do this kind of stuff often?” --»
GRAPEVINE TRAVEL
The answer is no. It was actually
us interns who came up with the
idea of visiting Vestmannaeyjar, the
Westman Islands, during winter-
time, and to find the least expensive
way of getting there. Our research
on Strætó’s website left us with one
option: taking a bus in the wee hours
of the morning and finding some-
where we could wait in Þorlákshöfn,
the small town from which the ferry
leaves in the winter months.
After some wandering in the
cold and seemingly dead town, we
decide to kill time in the cosy and
warm Kaffistofa Meitilsins, which
miraculously opens at 7am. Despite
the comfortable surroundings, the
four-hour wait for the ferry was still
a long one. Even we began to wonder
where the hell we were going.
Winter in the
Westman world
Given the lack of demand, the lack of
easy transportation hardly shocked
us. Research had already told us that
many restaurants are closed and
tours are limited in the off-season.
Understandably (and due mostly to
lack of wild puffins), tourism drops
drastically during the colder months
on Heimaey, the only inhabitable is-
land of the Westmans.
To top that off, travellers must
also endure a longer ferry ride in
winter, as the boat only sails from
Þorlákshöfn rather than the much
closer Landeyjahöfn. An extended
ferry ride and stronger winds in-
crease the potential for seasickness,
a fact made evident by the vomit re-
ceptacles sprinkled around our ferry
boat. It was also evident from my
wooziness on the way over.
Despite these challenges, Hre-
fna and I were determined to make
it work. With growing concern over
swells of summer tourists, what bet-
ter way to ration the crowds than
to see sites in the snowier months?
Though activities such as wild puf-
fin viewing and boat rides were
off-limits, we found myriad ways
to keep ourselves occupied. One of
those ways even involved explaining
to locals, and to ourselves, why the
island is worth visiting in cold, cold
weather.
Westman of
winters past
Though many summer tourists come
to the island to see puffins, Heimaey
is perhaps best known as the site of a
volcanic eruption. In the early morn-
ing of January 23, 1973, lava and de-
bris began shooting from Eldfell.
Though the volcano had been ac-
tive for a while, it was at this point
officials decided to initiate evacua-