PUFFINS!!!

  We enjoyed the museum immensely and did the driving tour of the

island.  We’re following the Rick Steve’s book, but can’t see half of the things that we’re supposed to see because the fog, mist and rain are so thick.  It’s really a bummer.  We see a stop for the Puffin House and get

out of the car, walk down a little track (John finally gets to use the little stairs to climb over a fence that we’ve been seeing throughout Iceland) and head to a tiny little green shed.  Inside there is a man sitting with a huge

camera and all these sliding window perches and openings.  And we realize that we are perched on the cliff with the puffins.  They’re everywhere outside and the man must be from some study of the birds because he doesn’t move,

doesn’t even lift the camera until there is a behavior that he is trying to catch.  We are literally 5 feet from puffins outside and we enjoy this thoroughly.  I knew this island was our best bet to seem them because they nest here to the

point that the kids on the island will go get stray pufflings that have been confused by the lights of the town and take them to get checked out and let them go afterwards. It’s a tradition and we are little late for it, but here are the adults all over the place.

We head to a cliff where we’re supposed to see some great rock formations, but can’t because of the weather.  While we’re there, we see a mother and her two sons get out of their car and walk to the cliff with a box.  And I know that this means that they have pufflings.  We get to watch as the boys each get to get out their puffling and fling them off into the sea where they fly

away and don’t come back to any land that is known for 3 years or something crazy like that.  It’s awesome that we got to see this.  We drive to Elephant Rock, but again, can’t see it because of the weather, keep driving around and run to the

        Bonus for some groceries, look for ash poles to show you how the ash and pumice was on streets when the eruption happened, but never get a picture of one.  We decide that the only thing that we want to do again while we’re here is go back to the puffin house before the ferry leaves.  We head back up to the puffin house and encounter some sheep on the path.  I wasn't

Elephant Rock.....can you tell?

sure if we were going to get head butted, but I just got bleated at and couldn't get good video of the way that they stick their tongues out when they bleat.  In the house the guy that is studying them is still there.  He has the best view of the puffins

 and is packing up, but taking his own sweet time about it to a point that is totally annoying with all these antsy youngsters around who just want to look out his window for a second.  He finally leaves and we get our good peak and leave.  Going down the mountain, we see that he is walking in the rain back to wherever he came from…..if he hadn’t been an asshole, we might have offered him a ride.  In fact, we’ve seen a lot of hitchhikers here and they get picked up and taken on to the next place still.  I haven’t seen that in a long time.