As we woke this morning, it was yet another foggy, cloudy day. While describing what should be seen outside the bus windows, we were growing accustomed to hearing Hilmat start with, "You'll have to take my word for it..."
But everything was great when we reached Diamond Beach. This beach is named after all of the small icebergs that have broken off the Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier, which is part of the Vatnajökull ice cap, Europe's largest. The small icebergs calve off the glacier and into the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon, where they wash out toward the Atlantic Ocean before being pushed back onto shore onto the Breiðamerkursandur black sand outwash plain. (Look at me, copying and pasting those names with the Icelandic letters instead of converting them to the closest English version! They're long words, and my memory is getting shorter!) The plain was formed when the three nearby glaciers were pushed forward from volcanic activity, which is pretty common in Iceland! In fact, we were there between active volcano eruptions around Grindavik, close to the Blue Lagoon. The icebergs in the lagoon are amazing and have stripes in them from the volcanic ash that is trapped as the glacier is formed amid volcanic eruptions. In case either I didn't explain it or you didn't read the Antarctica blogs, a glacier is formed from compressed snow, not frozen water. A glacier grows when the annual snowfall is greater than the snow melt off. It receeds, when more snow melts than falls. It takes many years for the weight of the newer snow to be heavy enough to compress the lower snow into ice. Unfortunately, the Icelandic glaciers are receeding, as are most of the world's glaciers. The blue color is because when the sun shines on the ice, all of the colors of the spectrum except blue are absorbed into the ice, leaving only the blue to be seen. When you get up close to them, they are, in fact, clear unless they contain air pockets or some snow that hasn't completely compacted into ice.
While washing out of the lagoon and into the delta of the ocean, some melting occurs and much of the volcanic ash is released before the smaller iceberg washes back up onto shore in the glacier plain. Those icebergs look like diamonds against the black sand of the beach, giving the plain its common name of Diamond Beach!
I've posted these pictures in the order the icebergs flow. We saw the Diamond Beach first. Then we went around to the glacier lagoon.
After spending some time at the lagoon, we boarded what they call a "super jeep" and headed up to the Vatnajokull ice cap to what has become known as the Crystal or Blue Ice Cave. This is a natural hole made in the ice cap. Because the glacier is constantly moving (like all glaciers), it changes frequently. Our cave guide told us that he can sometimes see the difference from day to day. The cave was beautiful! While we were passing another group, we passed by a girl that I danced in the grocery store with the day before. We did a little dance in the cave, too! The pictures I got of the cave, including the frozen waterfall, don't do it justice. It was a beauty! Much larger and more interesting than the one that opened up last year in the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia, though for my first ice cave, that one was amazing, too!
When we got off the jeep and put on our crampons, we walked across this smooth sheet of the ice cap.
This is what the ice cave looks like from the top of the glacier.
Now we're down inside the ice cave and the first magnificent site is the frozen waterfall with the flowing waterfall beside it.
This is a look up from the cave toward the sky. I believe it's where it looks like there are two holes from the top (above picture).
This is a second waterfall inside the ice cave, partially frozen with water flowing over the frozen part!
Chrissy taking a picture while our guide is waiting to help us over a tricky spot.
You can see how the glacier and ice cap has receeded. It created this lake by being pushed out to the edge of it. As the compressed snow ice has melted, this lake has formed. You can see land at the edge of the glacier in the rear of the picture, so it has receeded all the way beyond the lake that it formed.
By the time we finished our ice cave hike and returned to the lagoon, it was starting to get dark, so we headed to dinner and our accommodations. For some reason, Chrissy has decided she wants to learn Gaelic on this trip, so she has started working on DuoLingo during our down time. While driving, Hilmat was telling us about the genetic ethnic makeup of the Icelanders. Studies done have shown that there is no real surprise that most of the men are of Scandanavian descent. But that ethnic background of the women was somewhat surprising. It seems most of the women are of Irish descent. This can be explained because of the Scandanavian settlements in Ireland and the islands around Great Britain, with many of the Viking men taking wives (some willing, some not) from those areas as they moved on. Knowing that my maiden name is McDowell and that we always knew we were Scotts-Irish, she started doing some linguistic digging. McDowell is the anglicized version of MacDougal, which accounts for my ancestors' migration from Scotland to Ireland. In Gaelic, "mac" means "son of", and "dougal" means "dark-haired stranger or foreigner". Apparently, the Scotts differentiated the Danes from the other Scandanavians by calling them "dark-haired". So, my last name literally translates to "Son of Dane." Well, that's good enough for me! I now consider myself Danish. I guess I need to put together a trip to Denmark! And before anyone suggests it, I don't want to do a 23 and Me type of DNA test. I kind of like the mystery surrounding my heritage!
It was, again, too cloudy to look for the aurora. Since we were in individual cabins, I was able to step out the door and look to see if there were any changes the couple of times I woke during the night. We were in such remote places that if there had been a break in the clouds and any auroral activity, we would have been able to get them, as there wasn't even the hint of light pollution around us. But, another night of no lights for us. Some really great lamb stew for dinner, though!
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