Mairzy Doats and Bergy Bits and Liddle Lamzy Divey

After breakfast, we headed to a big glacier lagoon -- Jokulsarlon -- for our zodiac boat ride.   After suiting up in yellow safety gear designed to keep us warm (and safe in case of an extremely unlikely trip into the cold waters), we marched down the dirt road to the zodiac boat launch point.

We had to stay to the right to avoid getting run over by the various amphibious vehicles (back home, they are called Duck Boats).  At same time, we were passing next to nesting area for Arctic Tern.  They flapped and screamed at us, dive bombing near our heads (foreshadowing!).  We all had our hoods up so we didn’t get bird poop on our heads, but they were kind and didn’t poop.

Yes, I will admit as we walked through the Arctic Tern gauntlet that I was singing “To everything, there is a season, Tern, Tern, Tern” made famous by, wait for it, The Byrds!  Oh admit it, you would have been singing that same song in those circumstances.  I can even see you nodding your head as you read this paragraph.

We piled into the zodiac boats, ten to a boat, plus our captain, who was a cool young Icelandic dude who could have been a model for Icelandic cold weather clothing, but instead preferred to live the life of a zodiac boat driver, ferrying tourists around past bergy bits (as you will remember from the Antarctica blog, bergy bits are small pieces of ice bergs floating in the water), as well as actual massive chunks of ice deserving of the title “ice berg.”  

Like the Werewolf of London, his hair was perfect.  He had a carefully braided ponytail – how many hours a morning must he work on his hair.  If my fascination with his hair seems creepy, it was simply that I was sitting in the back of the boat, while the steering platform was in the middle. . .so it was easy to notice.

Anyhow, back to the ice, ice. . .baby.  We got relatively close to the glacier, and you could see from the blue streaks where pieces had calved off.  Carol and I heard a small splash, but did not spot the wave, so it could not have been a large piece.  

The lagoon has the deepest point in Iceland, and is about 25 square kilometers, or 9.7 square miles, which sounds a lot smaller than the 25 kilometers!

We spent about 45 minutes out on the water, and then it was time to unload and walk back.  The terns were more aggressive this time, as I got struck on the head twice.  It didn’t hurt (good thing I had the hood up), but it was a tad jarring.  So, the tern could go back to the nest and tell his mate that he had scared off the big, bad human, and I could say it was my tern to get hit in the head.  Twice.

After getting out of our water safety suits, we headed up a little hill overlooking the lagoon for some last looks.