Iceland has been one heck of a ride. There really aren’t many words that can describe what is going on here, so I thought that this picture was a good way to give you the mystery, beauty, and strength of Iceland.
This day is going to stick in my brain till the day I die. There is something about walking up a beach shore that is black volcanic rock and seeing scattered pieces of yellowish red jutting out of it. I walked by it and kept thinking man what in the world can this be? I got closer and saw giant lug nuts, hug screws, circular holes in big pieces of rusted metal. Then things began to click, a large piece with rivets down the entirety of it. This was a ship wreck. This ship went down out in the ocean, and people died because of it. This really brought my life into perspective. Here I was walking this beach with my rain gear and warm wool cap, and this showed a time in history where a boat went down without warning. People died that day. It was so humbling to walk among these pieces of giant metal and realize what happened.
What humbled me even more was looking up and seeing the ocean waves. These waves were strong, and pounded into the rocks giving this bubbling sound that moved every rock. You could hear the rocks hit against each other as the waves retreated back into the ice cold water. This boat went down off shore years ago, and now it is far up on the beach. This water was so strong that it literally picked up ship pieces, huge heavy metal let me remind you, and brought them on to shore. I couldn’t lift this pieces or move them and yet this water, that people think of as this sweet pretty kind liquid; had the strength to lift it from the ocean floor suspend it and then carry it in onto shore. What power, what strength it must have. Sitting on the rock pictured above looking out into the ocean it made me remember the shear power of nature. It brought me back to the basics of natures true strength and unpredictability. What was just another fishing trip turned out to be the last for many. It was a cold realization of the unforgivingness of nature. Sometimes we get comfortable with nature, going and seeing the elk walk in Yellowstone, the tornadoes on the plains, and we forget the power behind it.
So I wanted to leave you with thinking about how strong nature truly is. Next time you are out and about look at the rocks, look at the landscape, look at the weather and realize the strength behind them. Take a second to understand your place on this earth, know that just because we are “top of the food chain” doesn’t give us a free pass from nature. Know your place, love it, and protect it.
-Ben Van Gorp