Volcanic Night of Terror, Cute Puffins Define Iceland’s Heimaey

Days 50-51, 2025 European Odyssey

Sunday and Monday, Aug. 17-18, 2025; Reykjavik and Heimaey, Iceland.

Historic events mark a society, putting a stake in the ground that forever marks “before” and “after.” People remember where they were. History takes a turn. In my lifetime, I can think of three such events: JFK, 9/11 and Covid19. They don’t need any more description than that to evoke memories.

But none of those events touched me in the deeply personal way that Eldfell changed life forever in Heimaey, one of the Westman Islands off the southern coast of Iceland.

Our guide introduced herself by saying she was born five months before that 1973 volcanic eruption sent the island’s entire 5,000 population on a middle-of-the-night evacuation to the mainland. By the time the eruption ceased about six months later, the community had lost 400 buildings and houses but gained 10 percent more land. A lava flow threatened to close the island’s harbor – the lifeline for the island-sustaining fishing industry – but was stopped by a massive effort to pump seawater to stop the advance (the largest lava-cooling effort ever).

Reading some of the many online accounts of the eruption (here, here and here, for fascinating examples) before visiting would have given me more context, but we quickly learned the dramatic details during our first stop at the Eldheimar Museum. It is built on the edge of the lava flow and surrounds a house left just as it was evacuated in minutes. Houses not destroyed were filled with ash.

Today was fairly clear, so we had a glimpse of the glaciers on Eyjafjallajökullon, the volcano on the mainland that disrupted air travel across Northern Europe in 2010 (and stumped many a newscaster trying to pronounce its name).

Heimaey isn’t just known for its volcano, but also as the summer home to 8 million puffins — about half the world’s population. We were fortunate to be here before the last of them had left their nests this month to spend the winter at sea, resting and sleeping on the waves. A wooden lookout on the island’s south coast provided a good view of the pudgy birds wildly flapping their wings to stay aloft before landing in the grass below.

Once the babies – called pufflings or pysjas in Icelandic – are ready to fly, some are confused by the town’s lights. Our guide described how the children delight in going out after dark to find and rescue the lost pufflings, housing them in cardboard boxes overnight and releasing them at the cliffs in the morning. She brought one aboard our bus to visit before early-morning departures for us and the puffling (whose beak color won’t come for a couple of years).

It’s a shame Holland America doesn’t come to Heimaey more often. This is my first time here in six cruises to Iceland. It’s fairly easy to explore on foot and has the infrastructure (guides and buses) to offer interesting tours.

Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, is always on the itinerary, usually for an overnight stop. On this cruise we had only one day, but the ship stayed Sunday until 11 p.m., allowing passengers time to tour the Golden Circle or even visit the South Coast.

I had planned to join friends for an evening walking food tour, but canceled it when they unfortunately had to fly home from Reykjavik after she broke her leg and injured her ankle during a hike in Djúpivogur.

Instead, I revisited many of my favorite places with the goal of getting in some serious walking. I love the old harbor area, with its repair yard for fishing boats and the occasional smaller expedition ships at the dock. The lobster soup and beer at Sægreifinn was just as good as during an earlier visit (and by chance my photographs almost identical).

I got as far as the Maritime Museum and kept going rather than tour it again. Circling back to the city center, I found the line at Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, the popular Icelandic hot dog stand on every tour, was longer than usual. The square in front of Alþingishúsið, the Parliament building, was packed with people, but I found no one else in the peaceful garden behind it.

From the town lake my route took me several blocks up the hill past Victorian houses, as I returned to Hallgrimskirkja, the iconic church overlooking the city. Lask month I just sketched from the outside, but today I thought I would go to the top of the belltower for a panoramic view of the city. Once inside, I realized I had gone up a few years ago, so moved on.

Instead of taking the rainbow-painted Skólavörðustígur Street back to the shuttle dropoff, I set off on another street, indulging in a famous warm cinnamon roll from Brauð & Co (and negating any health benefits of my five-mile walk).

My last stop was at the Sun Voyager, a stainless-steel sculpture by the water, popular at sunset for stunning photos. Sunset was still hours away (at 9:30 p.m.) and probably would be hidden by clouds, but the sculpture is impressive nonetheless.