Heimaey
Wednesday morning saw us arrive off the island of Heimaey around 7:30am with overcast weather and temperature around 10c. They had some trouble getting the ship into a good anchorage so now running about 30 mins late on today’s tours. Today we will be tendering ashore using the ships boats.
Heimaey is an Icelandic island, 4 nautical miles (7.4 km; 4.6 mi) off the south coast of Iceland. At 13.4 square kilometres (5.2 mi2), it is the largest island in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago. Eldfell is a volcanic cone just over 200 metres (660 ft) high on the island of Heimaey. It formed in a volcanic eruption that began without warning on the eastern side of Heimaey on 23 January 1973. The name means Hill of Fire. The eruption caused a major crisis for the island and led to its temporary evacuation. Volcanic ash fell over most of the island, destroying around 400 homes, and a lava flow threatened to close off the harbor, the island’s main income source via its fishing fleet. An operation was mounted to cool the advancing lava flow by pumping sea water onto it, which was successful in preventing the loss of the harbor. After the eruption, the islanders used heat from the cooling lava flows to provide hot water and to generate electricity. They also used some of the extensive tephra (fall-out of airborne volcanic material) to extend the runway at the island’s small airport and as landfill on which 200 new houses were built.
At 9:30am the Captain made an announcement that due to the weather conditions we would unfortunately have to cancel our call here at Heimaey today. The initial tendering turned out to be unsafe so has been abandoned. Apparently the first guests in the boats experienced unpleasant conditions with a few suffering from sea sickness.
