7-10-2017 Vigur Island and Isafjordur
It was another busy day. Went to a puffin colony, which was on an island called Vigdur.
One family had lived on this island since 1880’s. The great grandfather was a rector of the church of a town (!) settlement across the way, and it was his cheerful great grand daughter who gave us a tour of the little island’s eiderdown factory. The down of the eider is stunningly soft and crunches up very very small, then unfolds again. It is highly prized in Japan and China. Much better than the down of a goose.
She was a pretty, cheerfully plump girl, with a sweet pretty face. She walked in rubber boots up to the tiny windmill that is perched on the top of the island. It was used for grinding corn and there were two corn grinding rocks which looked quite serious in the ground before it.
Then we all took a funny walk on the trail of the wild tern. The trail was mowed between fields in which nested many wild tern. The tern do not like the people marching through their fields, whether the people keep to the trail or not. So the tern dive bomb the people. So the people carry little sticks with bright blue flags on the end and keep waving the sticks around to discourage the birds, who, like Ganesha birds, hit the sticks anyway, quite hard!!!
After than little tour of the “Birds” we had a nice snack in their family’s house, and wandered around taking pictures and avoiding crabby tern.
That afternoon, we went basically across the bay to a real settlement, where we had signed up for Waterfall hike and Arctic Fox center. The waterfall was a 2 mile hike – good fun.
The Arctic Fox center only had two rescued foxes in a pen.
Not quite what I was imagining. But they were very sweet.
But the hike was very nice and the waterfall was quite something. It was also fun talking with the local guide. He was constantly taking tests to improve his skill set as a guide. He mentioned that he had not only a physical therapist degree and Kinesthisiologist degree from college, but he also was trained as an orienteer, as a specialist in native nature, as an Emergency Medical Technician, CPR, How to drive an ambulance, a fire truck, a motorcycle, a big truck, how to set bones, administer medicine, how to drive all forms of boats from a dinghy to something that is 110 feet long, how to navigate by stars, and I don’t even remember all the rest. Crazy!
Peaceful night.
penworthy 