Borgarfjörður eystri and Seyðisfjörður
This was the first day of the group tour that we would be staying at the same place for more than one night, which made logistics a bit easier. We started by going to Borgarfjörður eystri for a boat tour, then to cliffs to view puffins, then spent part of the afternoon in Seyðisfjörður, an East Iceland town at the head of a narrow fjord which is known for its art culture.
The place we are staying is a hostel, so we ended up doing a group breakfast. Several of us bought some food, and the group leader put everything together and cooked some hot dishes. It was a good way to start the day.
Borgarfjörður eystri
We got into the vans and started to drive towards Borgarfjörður eystri to find our tour. We didn’t see anything, then realized we had passed it a few miles back. We thought we were running late, so we rushed back, saw the boat, but didn’t see anyone around it. The leader tried calling, and apparently instead of launching at 9 a.m., the tour people were assuming we would start something before noon. They came over right away and started setting up the boat, so things worked out well anyway.
We put on floatation suits then got into the Zodiac. Unlike a couple of days before, there were seats in the boat. Good thing, since it was a lot rougher in the ocean than in a lagoon. We went near the cliffs where we initially had gone to try to see puffins. As it ends up, I didn’t see too much during the boat tour itself, but I was able to capture more things with my camera by guessing where to point. Even so, I didn’t see any puffins in this first place, and we continued to our next stop.
The guides showed us a cliff where there was rock back from when Iceland was first created. We could see various strata, which were exposed when a glacier broke off a lot of material. We also saw a lot of gulls (in addition to some black-backed gulls), a lot of them hanging out on the rocks, but I only saw a few puffins flying along the water. The guides explained that the gulls would lay their eggs on the cliffs, and since the eggs are pear-shaped, they don’t roll off. For the most part, there aren’t any predators, so the eggs are pretty safe. Puffins, however, dig holes into the grassy areas and lay their eggs there.
We went to another area where, in addition to gulls, we saw some seals. Just like before, I couldn’t really make them out, but was lucky enough to see them when I edited the photos later.
Melody hadn’t gone onto the boat tour because she was still feeling a bit under the weather, so while we were on the water, she walked around the town. She found a small hill with a set of stone steps that took her to the top, then she checked out the church. Our plan was to have lunch at the restaurant in town, but she noticed that a big tour bus had pulled up to the restaurant, which meant they were only serving those people. We decided to drive back to the cliffs to have lunch at the café there.
While we were eating lunch, we saw a huge line of people waiting to go up the cliffs to observe the puffins. Fortunately, by the time we finished eating, those people were gone. As we went downstairs to go to the cliffs, we found where they went; all those people were waiting for the bathrooms. We worked our way through the crowd and started climbing the cliffs.
Going all over the stairs and boardwalks, we ended up sticking around one section which was really close to a big section of lawn with many puffin holes in it. We saw several puffins come out, pose for a bit, then fly away. The ones that flew in went right into their holes. One time, a puffin came out, then we saw something else in the hole. It ended up being a puffling, which had a very different-looking head.
Seyðisfjörður
After we left the puffins, we drove to Seyðisfjörður to wander around the town. Melody and I did a short walking tour, which took us all around the lagoon. We saw sculptures, the rainbow path leading to a Seyðisfjarðarkirkja (the Blue Church), and a food truck that was a bar that happened to sell some cakes; we got a slice and ate outside, then climbed to the top of the food truck to take a quick look.
There was an option to walk a few minutes to Búðareyrarfoss, a waterfall that drops almost 200 feet, so we did that. It was a pretty steep climb to the base of the falls, but we made it, running into other group members on the way. We then started wandering back towards the van, running into a couple of people from our group. Since we were there, we pointed out some items that were in our walking tour, then watched a group of girls dive into the very cold water.
After returning to the hostel, Melody and I went to the store to pick up some more items to share at breakfast, as well as dinner for ourselves. It was a quiet evening after that.
