Tuesday, June 4, 2019         No rain = beautiful weather, again

For the morning, the group of students walked to the Eldheimar museum and learned about the volcano eruption in Heimaey in 1973. It is a very cool museum where we walked around with audio guides that sense our location and play the corresponding audio. It is built around an excavation site after the eruption. We were able to see the ruin of a house, the model of the path of the lava flow which almost closed the port of the island, learn about what people were doing during the time and a newly created island by lava, Surtsey.

In the afternoon, we split up into two groups. One group hiked the Helgafell and the other hiked Eldfell. I hiked Helgafell. It was really fun with loose rocks and steep slopes. Despite being forecasted to be around 0 Celsius and windy, it was so warm and we had to shed layers during our hike. Our little science exercise for the hikes was to measure the pressure at sea level and at the top of each mountain that we hiked, and compare the margin of errors between devices and with the elevation marked (the accurate standard). Tomorrow, we will hike the other mountain and do the same thing.

A group photo with the puffin before we split.

The Eldfell group.

The view from Helgafell. If we look towards Eldfell, we can distinguish the new land that was created by the lava.

Cat of the Day! We met this cute little cat on our way back from Helgafell.

After dinner at Gott (a very nice restaurant), we (people shown in the picture above) biked to the south side of the island to see puffins. It was a rough bike ride! But it was worth it. Sheep and horses also became our friends for the ride.

Since we were on the south of the island, we hypothesized this was Surtsey.

 

The weather has been unbelievably fabulous for three days on a roll. On the morning of Monday, June 3, 2019, the IFS group said goodbye to the Igdlo Hostel in Reykjavík and headed southeast. Our final destination for the day is Heimaey, a small island to the south of Iceland that can be reached by ferry. On our way to the ferry station, we stopped at the Commonwealth farm and a dam.

After packing and loading the van, we played cards while waiting for the people who went shopping to come back at the Igdlo picnic table.

It was noon and windy when we got off the car! The Commonwealth Farm is a replica of what has been dug up at the archeological sites in Iceland. We visited with the goal of getting a better idea of what we will be working with at the archeological site in Stod. The replica consists of a turf house and a small church next to it. In the turf house, we found items such as clothing, swords, wools, benches, and “bedrooms.” It shows how people back then might have lived and worked. Some of us commented it as no privacy because mostly everyone slept on a long bed bench altogether, with the one or two exceptions of high-status people sleeping in a small closet with space to lay down.

E is holding a sword in the turf house.

The right is the small church and the left is the turf house.

 

What are they looking at?

The dam!

 

Then, we had very much fun searching for a former forest that was destroyed by the eruption of Hekla in 1104.

Why was it fun?

Our van almost got stuck in the soft gravel. Fortunately, everyone got off the van except Charlie, the driver, and we were unstuck. The image below shows the track.

Our search for the forest was stopped by a small creek, so we enjoyed the view and played skipping rocks.

It was time to hop on the ferry. The experience was exciting for some of us, but not so much for those with motion sickness. I enjoyed bird watching with binoculars and the ocean breeze!

The tail of the ferry producing waves.

We arrived at the Heimaey Hostel save and sound. Thanks to Kathryn and Jordan, we had delicious pasta to fill our stomach before going to bed!