Iceland Day 15

We took a trip to Vigur island, about a 30 minute boat ride from Ísafjörður. Vigur is a small island, with one farm and a gazillion birds.

We grew to respect Artic terns in many ways. The longest migrations known, they spend two summers each year between Artic or sub-Artic regions and Antarctica. They defend their ground nests with a pretty good mob scene — we were given sticks to ward them off. That didn’t work for Wayne, who got a lovely deposit on his neck.

The main product of the farm is eiderdown. Eiderdown comes from the down of wild eider ducks — the female sheds about 17 grams into the nest, incubating the eggs. The down is collected by hand, half while the eggs are incubating, the rest after the nest is empty. No wonder eiderdown is so expensive!

The male eider ducks (which are black and white, no brown), puffins, and seals kept their binocular distance. The guillemots performed instead.

The collection of the Westfjords Heritage Museum  (Byggðasafn Vestfjarða) in Ísafjörður revolves around the historical fishing industry. The second floor was a bit of a surprise, 190 accordions! Could it be those long winter nights?