Another tick

I have ticked so many things off my bucket list during the past week but today it was a big one. I caught my first sighting of mainland Iceland early this morning (first extra) but that wasn’t where we were heading today. Instead we were to spend the day on the island of Heimaey, one of the Vestmannaeyjar islands off the south west coast of Iceland. 
When I was a geography teacher, several lessons for second year secondary pupils was devoted to studying an event on Heimaey back in January 1973 when a mile-long fissure cracked open without any warning and a wall of lava began to move towards the town. Some 5,300 islanders were told to leave their homes and they were evacuated from the island until later that year when the danger had subsided. Meanwhile, hundreds of tonnes of volcanic debris buried 400 homes and other buildings and a volcanic cone formed during the eruption. This is what we set off to conquer today and my main is looking down into the crater from where much of the volcanic ash and debris spewed.
We had the most beautiful weather for our adventure today and the day was concluded beautifully by a pod of perhaps twenty dolphin, leaping and playing near our ship as we set a course for Reykjavík in the evening sunshine.