Vestmannaeyar - Svein Olav's last stop

Vestmannaeyar marked the end point of Svein Olav's journey.

Svein Olav: I miss your company, solid seamanship, our good discussions, and not least - the good weather! Since Svein Olav left I have had nothing but rain and low clouds! :-/

 

Vestmannaeyar have experienced two major eruptions in recent history: 1963 - when a new island came to be - Surtsey. After several months of lava eruption Surtsey now is a live laboratory for biologists to find out how plants and animals start to inhabit a new island!

 

In 1973 another eruption on Heimeyr threatened to destroy the community of 4500 people. To avoid that the whole village was buried in ashes and lava, the islanders brought ini huge pumps to try to cool down the lava enough to stop it from further destroying the town. And they succeeded. The entrance to the harbour is narrower than it used to be, but more than half of the houses were saved.