Has anyone seen my puffin?

Gday from Iceland... the land of fire and ice...
Seriously, it´s not suprising that it isnt called the land of trees. On our 50min drive to the ferry to the Vestmannaeyjar Islands we didnt see ONE tree. Nothing even that closely resembled a bush [perhaps this is the only country where a Bush hasnt really got a foothold] - just this mossy stuff that youd see on the chin of a 15yo.
The trip across was not great. Whos idea was a ferry in the North Atlantic? The weather was pretty gloomy [and to give you an idea, here in the end of summer the weather was cooler than at home in Adelaide at the end of winter] though the locals thought it was ´a pretty smooth crossing´. Aaron looked particularly green and Jude stoically fought off the rumbles till the last 5 min. Lucky for us, the ferry ride only lasted 3 hours. Zoe slept half the way [courtesy of another 11pm bedtime] and I had to concentrate pretty hard on the horizon in order not to lose my lunch.
Now, back to my headline... the main, nay whole, reason for this part of the Icelandik voyage was for the kids to get involved in rescuing pufflings [yes, that is the name here for the baby puffins!] from being run over. The Vestmannaeyjar island is home to the worlds largest colonies of puffins. And at this time in August - ´yes we are in high season´ reassured our guesthouse managerby email before we left home - the local kiddies go out in the evenings and rescue the pufflings in boxes from the roadside and release them back to the wild.
All well and good youd think... except for there arent any puffins here now. ´Oh, there havent really been any here for the last couple of years... we had maybe 5 last year. When I was little there were hundreds.... blah blah blah.´ Hang on, didnt you say in your email that .... oh never mind. I hope you are enjoying our money.
So, the other riveting thing to do on the Vestmannaeyjar Island is to see where the island was enlarged by 1/3 in the early 70s by a volcanic eruption... and it was actually pretty spectacular. The line between the original settlement and where the new lava is quite abrupt. Pretty abrupt too I guess for those poor buggers who lost their homes. Of course in their very iceland-ickly indomitable way, the just built new houses. One can imagine them saying, as the nailed the last sheet of iron down on the roof... ´what are the odds of that happening again...´
Jude went for a strapping hike up the side of the hill overlooking the town and got some great shots. Nothing like learning to shoot on location. When we are back in Bergen on Wed night, Iĺl try and upload some pics for you. While she was being all intrepid, I was swimming in the local pool with the kids. We are still trying to reconcile this kind of modified expectation. Sometimes, I am living as vicariously through the photos as you are.... ha - you think Im joking. And youre getting it for free...
Anyway, its amazing that a whole country could feel so hunkered down. So pragmatic. One is really really aware of how the weather pretty much does as it wants, and you suffer it. Theres no amazing architecture, no flash colours in the housing like in Norway or Denmark, no trees, no agriculture, no MacDonalds [just kidding]. They fish and they stay indoors away from the howling wind and driving rain and blinding snow with a dark winter lasting nearly 10 months a year. I found it just incredible that 1000 years ago, people left their perfectly good homes in other countries and struck out across reasonably inhospitable water to build hunkered down kind of lives in a barren and windswept place like this... Now thats not to say that it isnt amazing in a remote and barren kind of way. It is, and we are both - now that the ferry rides are done with - quite struck with awe at it all really. Iceland. I mean really... Iceland. And we are here. It kind of feels normal in a Ive-never-done-this-before kind of way. I guess that didnt make any sense.
The multicultural life continues in Guesthouses and Hostels. We ate together with some greeks, germans and poms tonight. Breakfast this morning with a lovely german woman who came to Iceland for a month to study how a culture could arise unaffected by the romans.... We just came here because it seemed like a cool place. How shallow and unlearned!
Anyhow, tomorrow we go off to see the geysir after which all geysirs on earth are named... and europes largest waterfalls. Im not sure whether that refers to volume or height or amount of money obtained from tourists....
Iĺl let you know tomorrow....