Arctic Adventure Part 14 - land of steam and ice (Iceland)

Do you remember being yelled at as a kid by your dad for using too much hot water (then you became a dad and did the same thing)? Can you imagine how upset your dad would be if he saw this much hot water just being dumped into the ocean?

Unlike the Beverly Hillbillies with oil "One day he was shootin' at some food, up through the ground came a bubblin' steam". Doesn't rhyme worth a damn but you don't have to clean up a water spill.

Welcome to Iceland, the land of temperature contrasts. Even though it's called Iceland, it's warmed by the Gulf Stream and isn't really as cold as you would expect given how close it is to the arctic. Doesn't matter as the place sits on top of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (where the tectonic plates of both Eurasia and North America get together and argue about who's tougher). Whatever - drill down a little bit and you get free hot water. In fact, the whole country runs on free energy (except for cars).

They even have a lovely educational center at one of the big power plants:

Turning steam from the ground into usable forms isn't rocket science, but the Icelanders are experts none the less.

Some of it just goes into steam turbine electrical generators.

Model cutaway of steam turbine

The real McCoy spinning away

Since they have an seemingly endless source of steam, they heat all the buildings using the stuff.  Getting the steam pressure safely regulated so that you don't accidentally blow your head off takes some infrastructure.

These are heat exchangers - the steam that comes straight out of the ground has chemicals in it that you don't necessarily want floating around town.

 But mostly consists of miles of big insulated pipes.

Iceland isn't the only country to use geothermal energy. The US has the second most generating capacity (just a tad behind China). The biggest US spot for geothermal production is The Geysers, just north of San Francisco.

By Stepheng3 - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19087599

I bring this up simply to point out that you can overuse a good thing. Billions of dollars were poured into the Geysers only to have the steam eventually disappear. They had to resort to pumping water (treated sewage water) back underground to get it going again.

Only a tiny fraction of the natural steam in Iceland gets used commercially.  The rest happily blows up all over the place in the form of geysers. 

geyser in ambush mode

Don't be fooled into thinking the water is inviting for bathing. This water is perfect for poaching fish and eggs.

Not all of them are small:

This picture is a good example of how to be a stupid tourist.  Notice how the ground to the left of the rope barrier is soaking wet?  Do ya think that's a smart place to stand?

Here comes the eruption

And here comes the soaking

I had great fun here. The big geyser erupts every few minutes (whereas Old Faithful in Yellowstone only erupts every 44 to 125 minutes - meaning you have to stand around and be patient - not my strong suit). Almost every time this one erupted someone was dumb enough to get an impromptu bath. Laughed my (dry) ass off.

This is the fishing village Akureyri:

Akureyri is the second largest city in Iceland (which isn't saying much - there are only 330,000 Icelanders in the whole country). Think of Akureyri as the complete opposite to Chicago. It has the lowest crime rate in the world. Crime is so rare that the city only has a total of 5 police officers on call.

So are Icelanders the most law-abiding people in the world? No. In fact they may be some of the biggest scofflaws around. Look closely at the bow of this boat:

That's not a radar antenna. It's a whale harpoon. Icelanders still hunt whales. 

Slabs of fin whale meat await packaging at the Hvalfijordur whaling station in Iceland.

PHOTOGRAPH BY INGOLFUR JULIUSSON, REUTERS

The whaling story with Iceland is just plain screwy (long running and complicated). Iceland has been whaling since the 12th century.  It's ingrained into their culture, however, they no longer make any money doing it. People in Iceland eat very little whale meat (only 3% of Icelanders admit to eating whale meat). Basically, whale meat tastes like shit no matter how you serve it.

The percentage of tourist curious to taste whale meat has dropped in the last 5 years from 40% to 18%. I wasn't even curious (not interested in trying Kentucky fried panda either).

Most of the whales the Icelanders poach they try to sell to Japan. Japanese aren't big fans either, but they do consume a little (a legacy of WW II when whale meat was the only thing left). Whatever Iceland can't smuggle to Japan is turned either into animal feed (for fur animal farms - most dogs won't eat it) or simply goes to waste (man that must stink!). Every so often Greenpeace will catch them shipping 100's of tons to Japan and will stop the shipment by raising a huge stink. Most ports in the world won't allow transshipment either.

 So why do does Iceland continue to hunt minke, fin, sei, and the occasional blue and humpback whales? As far as I can tell, it now comes down to this one guy:

 Kristján Loftsson - owner of Hvalur (Icelandic for Whale) company. One of the most reviled men in the world.

Kirstjan is essentially an Icelandic curmudgeon.  His father started the big Icelandic whaling company Hvalur in 1948 and little Kirstjan went to sea with him starting at age 13. He has an entrenched "good enough for the old man, good enough me" attitude.  

"Whales are just another fish for me, an abundant marine resource, nothing else." 

 Even though hunting whales doesn't turn a profit, Kirstjan just doesn't like anyone telling him what to do (or not do). Financial filings in 2014 for his company showed a 1,000,000,000 Kronkite loss (around $7.5 M). In 2016 he didn't send any whale hunting boats out at all (hooray). Seems like the marketplace will do what countless international commissions have failed to accomplish. He's also running out of whaling boats.  He started out with 4, but Greenpeace managed to sink two of them. 

They were salvaged, but now rust away on land

In a twist of irony, the remaining whaling boats are docked right next to the whale watching boats.

Icelandic humor 

 

Eloping or burglary?

Flintstones brontosaurus rib bone arches

Iceland sits on one of the strangest places on earth. It's called Pingvellir.  

In theory its pretty straightforward. Stand in the valley:

On your left is the North American tectonic plate, on the right is the Eurasian tectonic plate.

Pingvellir is way more than just a place to stand on one continent and spit on the other.

The problem with Pingvellir is that it's hard to describe what it feels like to stand between two continents. It made my hair stand on end (but I have no idea why). I wasn't really worried about getting squoshed, it just gave me the heebie-jeebies. So it came as no surprise that this spot has held great historical significance for 1,000's of years. I'm by no means the first to recognize that this place is just simply, somehow different. Back in 930 AD the national parliament of Iceland was established there. Literally. Right there out in the open. They continued to meet in Pingvelli for the next 868 years (mostly out in the weather - there were never any substantial buildings).  

Pingvellir also functioned as courts. Icelanders were never the brutes that most Europeans were at the time. Most major crimes resulted in simple banishment.  You could, however, do something so egregious they felt the need for execution. This was accomplished by tying a bag over you and pulling you by rope into the river to drown.  Look closely at the scene above and compare it to the picture I took below.

Yes, that little promontory is the actual execution spot (the river is moving swiftly around the point). If that isn't creepy, I don't know what is. It's like sitting in Old Sparky to watch TV.

Reykjavik is the northernmost capital in the world.  The name translates roughly to "Smoke Cove" (most likely due to all the hot springs surrounding it) but to be honest - if it hadn't been for these two guys

(neither of them are remotely Icelandic)

we'd probably never have heard of the place (or know how to pronounce it). Ronnie and Mike met here in 1986 for the beginning of the SALT talks.

This is where they met.  It's the former French consulateBy Laurentgauthier - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4341100

 Reykjavik only has around 140,000 inhabitants but every single one of them love to hang out at the neighborhood swimming pool. With all the free hot water it sort of makes sense that the local pools became the social gathering site. One pool in particular has gained worldwide fame - The Blue Lagoon.

The Blue Lagoon gets it's name from the hot milky blue mineral rich water and is claimed to be beneficial for those suffering from skin diseases (like the heartbreak of psoriasis). While it may sound kinda gross to go swimming in a dermatology lab petri dish - no worries. The water is actually the effluent from a nearby power plant and is constantly flowing fresh water at about 100 degrees. It's quite nice, and has been the setting for many TV and movie scenes.

No, not this one.

Random statue

Saw these horns on someone's front deck

Really?  Flammable?

I'll leave Iceland by quashing a long running urban myth about Icelanders and bananas.  The myth is that Icelanders eat more bananas per capita than anyone else in the world (I heard this tale 3 times during the two days I was there). They do this because they grow tons of bananas in their geothermal heated greenhouses. Due to the high latitude and short growing season the bananas supposedly take 2 years to mature. Somehow this myth has been propagated in movies, books, quiz shows, etc and has taken on quite a life of it's own.  The problem is that none of it is true.  The last commercially grown Icelandic banana was sold in 1960. Iceland imports their bananas from France and Spain.  They eat more bananas than Americans per year, but nowhere near as much as Dominicans (I looked it up).

This shot is for my friend Henrik

Leaving the dock in Akureyri the ship did something that only a fellow mariner can fully appreciate (and laugh at). We had to be pulled backwards up a narrow fjord away from the dock.

The tug let go of the line

And our ship promptly ran over it - wrapping it around the prop. (This time it wan't me having to brave the frigid water to cut us loose).