We visited the Westman Islands, off the south coast of Iceland. The most famous of these is Surtsey, which came into existence in 1963. We visited Heimaey, the largest and only inhabited island of the group, with 4000 residents. In 1973 a volcano erupted and buried 400 houses under 20m of lava.
The lava flow almost closed the harbour which is home for the largest fishing fleet in Iceland, but they pumped sea water onto it and saved it.
We walked over the new lava and most of the way up the volcano it came from
It was raining and most of the time we were in cloud
But the weather cleared enough in the afternoon to go puffin-hunting
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