Day 93-Föstudagurinn langi

   April 6-Literally translated, Föstudagurinn langi means "the long Friday."  This references the fact that it must have felt like a long time for Christ as he hung on the cross.  I suppose that it makes as much sense as calling it "Good" Friday.
   My family wanted to do three things while staying near VÍk: visit Heimaey, see Jökulsárlón, and ride horses.  This was the last full day they would have at the cottages, so they needed to fit in both Jökulsárlón and the horses today.  Since we had seen Jökulsárlón the day before, Sally and the girls did not want to make the drive again, so they stayed behind, while I drove the rest of the group to Jökulsárlón in the van.  We got up and around relatively early for us and headed out.  The weather was similar to the day before, so everyone got nice views of the glaciers and Jökulsárlón.  Since the views were so good, I pulled over into a driveway, so people could take pictures.  A few seconds later another car slowed down to pull into the driveway, so I pulled forward to make some room.  Unfortunately, my father had partially stepped out of the car and placed his foot under the vehicle, so I rolled the rear tire up onto his ankle in the process.  Luckily, I was moving very slowly and he yelled soon enough for me to stop before I had gone very far, so he only ended up with a slightly sore foot without any permanent damage.  Whew!
   When we got to Jökulsárlón, I was surprised by the changes that had occurred during the intervening 24 hours.  Namely, the north side of the lake had been mostly clear of icebergs the day before, but now it was practically packed full.  I don't know if the change was due to a large amount of icebergs calving off overnight or if the winds had shifted and blown the icebergs to the north.  In any event, the lake was so full of ice that the boat tour operators told my family that there would be no tours today, because there was so little room between icebergs through which the boats could navigate!
    These conditions are more common now than in the recent past, when there was usually more open water on the lake. As Iceland and the rest of the Arctic warms faster than the rest of the Earth, the glaciers are receding ever more quickly.  The result is that Jökulsárlón is growing larger as it fills the space left by the the disappearing glacier.  However, the concomitant increase in calving means that there are ever more icebergs to fill the larger space.  At the same time, beach erosion is slowly shrinking the narrow beach that separates Jökulsárlón from the ocean.  As these two processes continue, the beach will one day cease to exist and Jökulsárlón will become an iceberg-filled fjord that extend ever further inland.  Since the Ring Road runs along the beach, it will be interesting to see the solution that the Icelandic Department of Transportation comes up with to continue to maintain this important transportation corridor.

 

The kids in front of the Reynisfjall mountain and the Reynisdrangar sea pillars to the west of VÍk.



  While I was essentially redoing the previous day, Sally and the kids explored the coastal area
between Suðurhvoll and VÍk, before returning to Suðurhvoll to enjoy a taste of Icelandic farm life.  They explored the outbuildings and got to meet the farm's sheep and cattle.  Emma's aunt, Guðný, asked the kids if they would like to help bring the horses in from the winter pasture and they jumped at the chance.  Guðný's daughter, JakobÍna, who is Alex's age, also came along to help.  It turned out that she knows Alex's friend, Þorgerður, who went to school in VÍk while she was living there with her father.  It was another good reminder that Iceland is not very large and that you are only a couple degrees of separation from nearly any given person!
They walked out to the winter pasture and Guðný bridled the four gentlest horses.  Our kids and Þorsteinn mounted them and the adults and JakobÍna began to lead them towards Suðurhvoll.  The other horses fell in behind the group and pretty soon the whole herd was in the corrals back at the farmstead.  

JakobÍna leads Joslyn on Kopar (Copper). 

Guðný's son leads Spencer on Frosty.

Pálmar makes a friend.

Þorsteinn and Emma.

Once back at the stables, the kids stayed on the horses and rode them around.

JakobÍna shows off her horse "riding" skills.  The house built by her and Emma's grandfather is behind her.
It was the largest house in the district for many years.  The Miðhvoll cottages are on the right hand side.

Alex on Frosty.



Guðný saddled up the horses and took our kids for a ride down by the seashore and on around the farm.



Next, Guðný, Sally, Pálmar, Emma, and Þorsteinn went for their ride.

   We got back from our trip to Jökulsárlón about the same time that Sally's group was returning from their ride.  Guðný unsaddled the horses and let them cool down while she brought the dairy cattle in for their afternoon milking.  We watched the cows come in and line up in their stalls.  Since my folks had milk cows and had to milk them the traditional way when they were children, they enjoyed seeing some of the relatively modern milking equipment in action. 

Þorsteinn, Spencer, Shan, Sigurður's dog, and Emma cruise
down the black sand beach in Sigurður's Isuzu "Jeep."

   Guðný's eldest son, Sigurður, offered to take us for a ride along the beach.  Prior to moving back to Suðurhvoll to take over the operation of the farm, he lived in Reykjavík and worked for a company that tricks out 4WD vehicles to tackle extreme off-road conditions in the highland interior.  These vehicles are called Jeeps and Super Jeeps here regardless of the make of the vehicle.  Sigurður has his own Jeep pickup, so half of us climbed into it and the other half got into Emma and Pálmar's stock SUV and we headed for the black sand beaches of the farm. 

   We drove east down the coast for a few miles and on the way we got some great views of Dyrholaey.  This is a large natural rock arch that extends into the ocean and is essentially the southern-most point of Iceland.  (The black sand beach Kötlutangi of Mýrdalssandur about ten miles to the east is sometimes more southerly than Dyholaey.  It alternatively grows south during hlaups and
then shrinks back inland due to coastal erosion.)

   We arrived at the cliffs of Dyrholaey and disembarked to take in the views.  For centuries this beach was the point at which locals were connected to the outside world.  Sandurs to the east and west and glaciers to the north made overland travel very difficult, so locals relied on the spring trading ship and the fall trading ship to sell their goods, buy needed supplies, and get news from the outside world.

The kids and Norm watch the waves roll in.
Should they stay or should they ......... run!

Since there is no natural harbor, the trading ship would anchor out to sea and the locals would row out to it to do their trading.  This was also the location that locals put out to sea to go fishing.  As we watched the waves roll in, we could not imagine the courage it must have taken for the farmers to push their six- or eight-man rowboats into the sea and hope not to be swamped as they
rowed furiously to get beyond the breakers.  Sigurður told us that the waves we were seeing were not particularly large and that he has seen waves over 30 feet tall breaking on the shores of the farm!  It made us appreciate the convenience of modern infrastructure, such as roads, even more.  

   We got back to Suðurhvoll and it was the Fritzes' turn to go for their horse ride.  Icelanders saddle their horses in a much more simple manner than we do for American saddles.  They do not use saddle blankets and there is a single cinch for the saddle.  The upshot is the the process of saddling the horses took almost no time.  I don't know if this was the high point of the trip for Stacia and Kailey, but even though the weather had deteriorated and it had become very windy and pretty cold, they came back with big smiles on their faces and a desire to go riding again the next day!

Misty, Stacia, Greg, Kailey, and Guðný head off for the horse ride.