Having a whale of a time!

We are back from our trip to Iceland, and I think we are realizing now how lucky we were with the weather. We were there for four days and only had a little bit of rain on one day; the rest was glorious sunshine, day and night - even though there was really no night.

A clear highlight of our trip was the boat trip to Vestmannaeyjar. After a quick Skype conversation with our bird friends in Sweden, they advised us to go there if we wanted to see puffins.  Since it was high on my list of things to see in Iceland we set off and we didn't regret it at all.

We arrived at the ferry with an (almost) empty tank of petrol, very frazzled nerves, and with two minutes to spare, we learnt that it was booked out for cars and only walk-on passengers could still get on. So off to park the car and then rush onto the boat, but we made it! We were the last ones on though!  That still didn't stop us from getting a photo with Eyjaflofull.., no!! Euja*##%ull , no!! Eyjafjallajökull in the background:

When we arrived at Heimaey we realized that we probably had to take a boat trip around the island, or a bus trip, or do some serious hiking, since we didn't have the car. So we hopped on to yet another boat. Let me make it clear that this is not my favorite form of transport, especially not in rough seas. However this particular trip was the best ever. It took us into areas that we could not possibly have seen otherwise and we saw not only puffins but other birds and whales. Both killer whales and minke whales, less than 10 meters away. It was fabulous!

Hold your collective breaths for the puffins. It is bedtime here in dark Sweden (compared to Iceland)!