Hello from Heimaey! Yesterday was a big day as it was our first one whippin out the elevation platforms. We split into two groups and collected elevation data on two volcanoes (!!!) (Eldfell and Helgafell) and then on this craaaazy mountain we climbed and saw a bunch of kittiwake nests in the cliff on the other side. Mindblowing. It was like the mountain was just cradling us and the kittiwakes were all just zooming by. Shoutout to Anisha, who faced her fear of birds bigtime.

Also this sculpture was really cool.

Gonna add more later. Gotta go hiking.

Love,

Lilly

Today, we said goodbye to Igdlo, the hostel in Reykjavik, and boarded our vans to head for our next stop, the island of Heimaey! Our day began at 08.00 with breakfast, and we loaded our bags and ourselves into the vans for the drive at 09.30. After about an hour and a half, we arrived at the ferry port from which we departed for the island. Once at the port, we played some enjoyable card games while waiting for the 12:45 ride. The ferry had two levels and a deck above, allowing us to appreciate the open air of the water, and see the amazing islands as we went past.

After arriving on Heimaey, we walked up into the town and arrived at B&B, the place we are staying on the island. We split up into rooms and prepared for an afternoon at the Eldheimar museum. At the museum, which is within walking distance of B&B, we learned about the 1973 eruption on the island, seeing some of the buried buildings on the island, and video footage of the lava spewing from Eldfell. We left in waves, with some people going off to test various things such as our drone, and others playing soccer.

Afterwards we came back to the hostel, and had a delicious burrito dinner prepared for us by Eli, Ahsan, and Lilly.

This was the end of our structured program for the day, after which we all went to a local establishment to watch the friendly match between Iceland and Norway. We were joined there by a wide variety of locals, and got to experience a large part of their culture.

Tomorrow we’ll explore the volcanoes on the island, using our built-in-house elevation platforms to get measurements for the two most recent volcanoes, helgafell and eldfell.

First of June, first truly full day in Iceland, and a busy one at that. We started with a somewhat hectic breakfast at the hostel but eventually herded everyone together and hit the road as tourists following the Golden Circle. We started off visiting the Hellisheiði Power Plant. Iceland is positioned over the Mid-Atlantic ridge, hence the many volcanoes in Iceland, and geothermal power plants such as the one we visited harness the energy from the hot water to provide electricity and hot water to Reykjavik and other parts of Iceland. After a cloudy start to the day, the winds blew them away and revealed the sun as we visited the Kerið crater. Kerið was a volcano which erupted then collapsed after it’s magma chamber emptied.

We trekked a path that encircles the crater, tried not to be blown over by the wind, and then walked down to the lake at the bottom. A parking lot lunch was enjoyed by all, as we munched on sandwiches and GORP.

Then we drove on to visit the huge waterfall Gullfoss. With the sun shining we were able to see a double rainbow in the mist!

We planned to visit Geysir (from the Icelandic verb geysa, “to gush”, the verb from Old Norse) but we’d spent so much time at other sites and still needed to get to Þinvellir. But through the van windows  we were still able to observe (mostly) steam coming from the ground as we drove past. At Þinvellir we tested out the drones and got them flying before exploring the rift valley which was the original site for the Althing, the Icelandic parliament. Here we were able to see the results of continental drift in person: faults (cracks) from the separation of the North American and Eurasian plates. It was a lot of fun walking around and great weather for gazing at the glaciers in the distance (thanks to great weather)!