Breiðafjörður Scallops & Blue Mussels: The Shellfish of Stykkishólmur’s Bay

A Bay Built for Shellfish

Breiðafjörður is a large, shallow bay on Iceland’s west coast, scattered with somewhere close to 3,000 islands, islets, and skerries — locally known as the “Thousand Islands Bay” because the exact count shifts with the tide. The bay holds roughly half of Iceland’s intertidal area and more than a third of its coastline. Its waters are unusually shallow for an Icelandic fjord, and tidal ranges here reach up to about six metres, among the largest swings anywhere around the country. That combination — shallow seabed, huge intertidal zone, and strong tidal exchange — stirs nutrients through the water column constantly, which is exactly the kind of environment shellfish thrive in.

The Scallop Years

Stykkishólmur, sitting on a small peninsula on Breiðafjörður’s south shore, grew up as the bay’s fishing and trading hub, and for decades that meant scallops. Iceland scallop (hörpudiskur) fishing in Breiðafjörður began in 1970, and the bay went on to become the country’s most important scallop ground, landing around 254,000 tonnes before the fishery closed in 2003. The stock had been declining since the early 1980s, and a sharper collapse from the late 1990s onward — driven by weak recruitment, a parasitic infection known as “grey meat,” and warming bottom waters — forced the closure. A small, tightly limited commercial fishery has run again since 2020, but biomass surveys still show historic lows, so today’s hörpudiskur is a much smaller-scale product than it once was.

Mussels: The Everyday Harvest

While scallop stocks struggled, blue mussels never left. They grow thickly in Breiðafjörður’s intertidal zones, clinging to rocks and skerries that are exposed and covered twice a day by that dramatic tidal range. Mussels don’t need a boat and a dredge the way scallops do — they can be gathered by hand at low tide, which is part of why they’ve stayed a steady local food source even as the scallop fishery went through boom, bust, and partial recovery. Restaurants around Stykkishólmur and the wider Snæfellsnes peninsula serve Breiðafjörður mussels when available, usually simply steamed to let the flavour of the bay itself come through.

Seeing and Tasting the Bay

• Getting there: Stykkishólmur is about a 2.5-hour drive (roughly 170 km) from Reykjavík via Route 1 and Route 54
• Best way to see the islands: a guided boat tour of Breiðafjörður from Stykkishólmur harbour, typically 2-3 hours, often including a stop to haul up a net of shellfish for tasting on board
• What to bring: a warm, windproof layer even in summer — the bay is exposed and boat decks are breezy
• Timing: boat tours generally run from late spring through summer and into early autumn, weather and tide dependent
• What to look for on menus: Breiðafjörður blue mussels are the more reliably available option; scallops appear only occasionally given the limited fishery

Where to Stay

The Stykkishólmur Inn sits in the walkable old town of Stykkishólmur, a short stroll from the harbour where the Breiðafjörður boat tours depart and where the day’s mussel and scallop catch, when landed, comes ashore first. Book direct on Ourhotels.is for the best rate.

Photo: Rob Oo via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.