FRIDAY AUG. 27 EGILSTADUR - HUSAVIK

If yesterday was the worst day of the trip, today would be the best. Our drive out of Egilstadur was truly amazing, and this is after several days of superlatives. We turned inland and lost the coast, but were rewarded by a huge climb that put us on the top of a large plateau. Despite the fact that Iceland looks small on a map, the land itself is immense. The plateau was largely endless rolling lava fields hemmed in by pallisades of mountains. The lanscape was mostly lunar, grey-black with huge lava mounds. Periodically, some green appeared to break up the monochrome. Why "Lord of the Rings" wasn't filmed in Iceland, I'll never know.

As we neared the Myvatn area, we came across another location that was not of this planet. But instead of looking lunar, this field was red clay-mud, and was covered by mounds of mud pots, or geothermal mounds that vented super-hot steam from 200 meters down into the earth. At some places, the water bubbled up in a black thick soup that gave forth the foulest stench imagineable. It was right out of Macbeth's witches' cauldron.

Myvatn is a large lake that is maybe 12 to 13 feet deep at its greatest depth. It's name means "midge water" and is home to blackflies, midges and pseudocraters. We hope to explore this area in more detail tomorrow.

Finally, we arrived in Husavik, back on the ocean. It is a sizeable and charming sea-town with a small but busy harbour and colourful buildings. Our whale watching was a cold three hours tossed on the North Atlantic, but we enjoyed the company of two rather shy minke whales, who allowed us to tail them in our sturdy little fishing tub called "Sylvia", before they gave us the slip and disappeared into the vast ocean. Unfortunately, the major species of whales ( humpbacks, fins, bowheads, and blue ) had left these waters for warmer areas about two weeks earlier. Similarly, the puffins had all gone out to sea to feed and enjoy the warmer waters. We timed our trip about a month too late to really see these animals. But the minkes were fun. It is always special to see our powerful yet gentle marine cousins, whose intelligence and personalities were ruthlessly destroyed by Icelandic whalers in the recent past. Fortunately, minkes are not considered endangered because they are not extensively hunted due to their relatively small size. An average adult minke is only about 10 meters long. However, larger whales are back in the gun sights, so to speak. In 2006, Iceland resumed commercial whaling on a large scale. This has caused great division and controversy among Icelanders. We must say that we saw whale on more than one menu in Reykjavik restaurants, but we will not eat any of our marine cousins.

Seafood is a different story, and a fine fish dinner ended our day. Our spirits have been lifted by our relative good fortune and we hope to continue it. The weather is still largely good, though it has turned noticeably colder in the north. And the Icelanders are living up to my first impressions. They are polite and friendly enough, but so reserved and "cool": not a lot of yuks or giggles with them. I used to think that Germans were the most reserved people on earth, but Icelanders make Germans look like Latinos !!