Picnicking US Tourists Stranded on Iceberg
American tourists in dining on a glacier found themselves floating away.
May 23, 2013— -- American tourists dining on a glacier in eastern Iceland found themselves floating away from shore on an iceberg earlier this week, an Icelandic newspaper reported.
Four people were rescued from Fjallsárlón glacial lagoon. They had set up a table and chairs with plans for dinner when a gust of wind pushed the ice from the land. They were stranded about 30 feet from shore. One of the diners managed to jump to shore before the ice drifted too far and call for help.
The tourists have not been identified, but a photo captured three of the diners sitting in chairs, floating on a piece of ice that appears to be hardly larger than the table at which they're seated.
"When we arrived it was quite comical to see them sitting on chairs and with a table on an iceberg ... Yes the dinner was over," Páll Sigurður Vignisson told Iceland Review. He did not notice what they'd been eating.
However, Vignisson later told Iceland news service RUV, "They could have been in danger. We never know how ice will behave, if it rolls over and when—we just don't know."
Fjallsárlón glacial lagoon is an isolated glacial lagoon in the realm of Vatnajökull, according to a local tour company. Vatnajökull is Europe's largest glacier.
