Said Eliza Reid, the first lady of Iceland, quoted in "Iceland Is a Magnet for Tourists. Its First Lady Has Some Advice for Them. Eliza Reid, a former U.N. tourism ambassador and the wife of President Gudni Johannesson, welcomes her country’s many visitors, and has a few suggestions on safety, respect and how to meet locals" (NYT).
She's trying, politely, to deal with Iceland's problem of too many tourists. They get 2 million a year, and they only have 388,000 actual residents.
But what's a "sneaker wave"? It made me think of the mystery of the sneakers containing severed feet that were washing up on the coast of the Salish Sea. Remember that news story from 2021? It started happening after 2007 because of a change in sneaker design that made them more buoyant. There have always been corpses in the sea — from misadventures and suicides and so forth — and the sea creatures have been feeding on them all along — with special attention to the tender, delectable ankles — so submerged severed feet inside shoes was nothing new. They just weren't floating up on shore in the pre-buoyancy days.
But that's not what going on in Iceland. "Sneaker waves" have nothing to do with footwear or severed feet. They're just sneaky waves:
The waves here are so sneaky, they come creeping up on you and suck you in if you are standing too close - nothing can be done to save people if this happens - so please be extremely careful if you visit these beaches, and never turn your back to the sea and the waves....
The staff at Svarta fjaran - the Black Beach restaurant by Reynisfjara, say that they often go down to the beach to warn people against playing in the waves, only to be sneered at and scolded for trying to ruin the holiday of these people!
I'd never heard the term "sneaker wave" and thought maybe it's because we use another expression, specifically, "rogue wave"? But these are usually considered different phenomena:
One American oceanographer distinguishes "rogue waves" as occurring on the ocean and "sneaker waves" as occurring at the shore, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration loosely defines rogue waves as offshore waves that are at least twice the height of surrounding waves and sneaker waves as waves near shore that are unexpectedly and significantly larger than other waves reaching shore at the time. Scientists do not yet understand what causes sneaker waves, and their relationship to rogue waves, if any, has not been established.
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Beware the Undertoad
Iceland Air - Best. Airline. Ever.
I thought it couldn't get any better than Singapore Airlines or Swiss IAL until I flew Iceland Air. Vive la différence!
Do we have anything like sneaker waves in the US? Back when the kids were young we used to vacation on the Delaware beaches, and I recollect sometimes seeing a wave that washed much further up onto shore, but these waves still weren’t strong enough for their backwash to pull someone out to sea. Perhaps this is why tourists don’t understand the risks?
Here in the US we have plenty of stories from tourist sites like Yellowstone where people fell into — and in some cases deliberately jumped into! — hot pools where they were more or less boiled alive.
Some tourists pick up baby bison who then are rejected by the herd and die.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/baby-bison-killed-yellowstone-visitor-helped-animal-herd-rejected-rcna85937
Some tourists fall off cliffs taking selfies.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/richard-jacobson-fall-death-arizona-superstition-mountains/
Some tourists dissolve after falling into a hot spring.
https://www.businessinsider.com/yellowstone-dissolved-tourist-fell-pool-2016-11?op=1
Darwin Awards in action.
A “sneaker wave” here in GA is when driving past a neighbourhood walker who unexpectedly waves 👋🏽 at you, while you have no time to react in time to wave back. It’s a southern subtle scourge.
Self preservation is not a uniformly distributed human trait. Glad Iceland warns tourists. Grisly reminders of tourist stupidity at the base of waterfalls, or near volcanic vents, take effort to clean up.
Here in the US National Parks, videos of buffalo or moose tossing tourists twenty feet in the air with a shake of their heads are used as warnings to new visitors to stay back. I'd guess recordings of a volcanic vent accident would be too gruesome for the Icelandic tourist bureau to use with their guests.
A “rouge wave” is when when somebody tries to hail you from the curb like a cab. It’s straight up barbarism is what it is.
Get your phone, download the app and link it to your or your sugar daddy account and then hide inside somewhere when I come to pick you up and only come out to the car when my patience is just about exhausted.
No rouge wave please.
I first heard the terms "sneaker wave" and "sleeper wave" in Hawaii when I was visiting a family member. I was warned to always be careful of them, even at regular beaches. There have been many drownings in Hawaii because of people being knocked over by a sneaker wave and then dragged into the ocean.
Here's an example of how dangerous they are, although in this case it looks like no one was hurt.
https://youtu.be/-JlZ411GqXw
Go to YouTube and search for sneaker waves in Oregon and Washington. All the beaches have warning signs but they still kill.
Via Iceland in the 60s used to be the cheapest way to fly to Europe. Maybe they got used to the tourists.
How sneaky of Neptune. Usually if you're facing the ocean AND paying attention you can avoid Rogue/sneaky waves. But of course, that's what people don't do.. And if I had little kids or pets, I would always heed the warnings.
Always admired the people of Iceland. They're the only little country that told Banksters to go to hell in 2009-2010. The Orish, of course, paid them off. But I've never had a desire to visit. Too cold.
Rogue waves
Justin Bieber is to blame. Seriously.
Iceland also has a rich history of antisemitism.
She's trying, politely, to deal with Iceland's problem of too many tourists. They get 2 million a year, and they only have 388,000 actual residents.
I spent a couple of weeks in Iceland in the 80's before it got trendy and crowded. I enjoyed that, but have had no desire to return in recent decades because of the crowds. But now I'm adding to the problem as I'm doing a Viking themed tour of the Nordic countries this August and it made sense to go to Iceland for that. I need to book a hotel a day early and I'm looking at $400 a night for a decent hotel and $200 a night for a budget hotel or Airbnb.
"Iceland also has a rich history of antisemitism."
Considering freezing-your-butt-off Nordic countries have about as much in common with the Levant as Texas has with the dark side of the moon, I'm pretty nonplussed.
Surely the solution to Iceland's lack of diversity is more muslim immigrants.
“Sneaker wave” is a thing one hears living on the Pacific Coast. See, for example, this story from last summer: https://www.sfgate.com/weather/article/sneaker-waves-hitting-bay-area-17315465.php
Iceland also has a rich history of antisemitism.
LOL! The funniest joke ever.
Based on "Flags of our fathers" which was shot partly in Iceland, lots of that country isn't very attractive. IRC, they have a LOT of extinct volcanos.
But I've never had a desire to visit. Too cold.
Viking has added ocean cruises to their extensive list of river cruises, and they offer a one week cruise around Iceland. Their small (900 passengers) cruise ships can put into ports closed to the mega-ships of more famous cruise lines, or you can stay on board if you don’t fancy a shore excursion. Gives you opportunities to see the Northern Lights from the promenade deck. (Dress warm!)
Iceland is the cheapest way to Europe, and I actually spent time there. We did the loop, and climbed the glacier in February. It was raining, so it was similar to a Seattle February.
If you get the chance, go see Iceland. They have a beautiful Lutheran church, and the landscape is gorgeous as well.
Oddly, alcohol is closely managed. Don't expect to buy a bottle at 5pm to take home.
Ah, to go back to the good old days in 2008 when Iceland's economy was collapsing and residents were setting their Range Rovers on fire to get out from under oppressive foreign currency car loans.
RideSpaceMountain said...
Iceland Air - Best. Airline. Ever.
Lovely, smiling, strawberry blonde staff with Princess Leia buns, plus smoked salmon in tourist class
what's not to like
Sneaker waves regularly take unsuspecting people along the Northern California coast. Sometimes a dog is taken first, people go in to save the dog. The dog usually survives, the people do not.
Here we have hot springs with really hot water; we have active volcanoes; we have sneaker waves on beaches...we have strong winds
hon't forget the Reykjavik handshake
In the years I lived in California I read of two or three sleeper waves that took people to sea forever. Asians hoovering up cockles on one occasion.
"Lovely, smiling, strawberry blonde staff with Princess Leia buns, plus smoked salmon in tourist class. What's not to like"
They're constantly horny too (look up Iceland's sexual culture...very "summer of love"). The salmon isn't bad either.
Stunning country with beautiful black sand beaches, but who in the hell is going in the water - ocean temperatures run from the mid-30's to the low-50's!
Semi-smokin' mama, you got to give me some
I heard you got the biggest, ooo, the biggest truck in town
Ride on through to Baltimore - you got to love me now
Give it to me gently - feets don't fail me now (don't fail me)
Feets don't fail me now (don't fail me)
I also recommend Iceland Air. It is so good you almost wish the 3 hour flight from Boston was longer.
As for stupid tourists. I was riding around Cade Cove in the Smokey Mountains National Park one time and suddenly traffic came to a stand still and you could see people jumping out of their cars and running towards a patch of woods. I asked a guy if he knew what was going on, he said somebody had spotted a bear and people were running to try and get a picture of it.
Reminds me of a scene from Yellowstone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOrkILQmpRk
Some Great Lakes have these...
https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2022/12/24/understanding-lake-erie-s-seiche-phenomenon
Lake Michigan too.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-seiche-waves.html
“Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun. ”
― Larry Niven
“Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun. ”
― Larry Niven
2016 was a sneaker wave. Hillary supporters totally underestimated it.
watch the video at the link. yowza.
I did the 2-day stopover. I took a general tour where a college student drove us around in a van. There were a couple of exotic places, but then we stopped at a fish cannery and got to see big vats of guts. The whole country is basically a small town, and the tour was like what you'd get from a small town: "Here's a big mountain, here's the old church, and, well, here's the drugstore."
The Scandinavians seem to have a complicated relationship with alcohol. Sweden made it really hard to buy, to the point where it was common to see Swedes riding the ferry back from Denmark with several cases of liquor and beer on a dolly.
It's so expensive to live up there. I don't know how they all make their money. Iceland was a really poor subsistence-level fishing economy up until maybe WWII. They got big into banking in the late 20th century. Offered high interest rates to attract deposits from Britain, and when the financial crisis hit, they just kept the money. Eventually they paid it back, though, I think.
Yeah, the whole "sneaker wave" thing started about ten years ago, I think mainly for the benefit of the bridge and tunnel crowd who come out to the beach and haven't a clue about water safety. They stand at the edge of the waterline like it's a wading pool, and then get knocked down and dragged with the riptide and have no idea how to save themselves.
We have lots of hot springs here in CA too. Most are along the Eastern side of the Sierra, following the line of the Long Valley Caldera. Some have been turned into resorts, but the best ones are still so remote that you need a 4x4 to get there or be willing to hike a bit. Oh, did I mention it's because of a large currently dormant volcano?
http://keoughshotsprings.com/
https://www.livescience.com/63349-long-valley-supervolcano-magma-cache.html
She's trying, politely, to deal with Iceland's problem of too many tourists. They get 2 million a year, and they only have 388,000 actual residents.
"Hey honey, where would you like to vacation this year?"
"Let's go to Iceland. It's one of the last remaining natural wonders in the world. And you know how much I love nature. And we should probably go now before all of the tourists despoil it forever."
Ron, I once saw a pack of tourists chasing two baby bears in Yellowstone. I could only hope the cubs were running to Mama, who would have helped cull home sapiens of their not so sapien members.
Tom Clancy's novel "Red Storm Rising" had a pretty good description of the country.
Salish Sea......fuck that noise. It's called Puget Sound
Rogue waves are simply additive interference of several swell/wave patterns. Sneaker waves are when this happens when the shore bathymetry adds to this interference along with the shallow depth causes the waves to build by interacting with the bottom.
Scientists need to go take more phase-domain math. What is hard is identifying the various swell trains as their interference adds and subtracts.
And to all this, you add in the odd deep seismic caused waves that are the root of tsunami, the entire water column is in motion, they interact with the seafloor far more than surface swell and waves.
From 1978 Terry Reid a poetic gem...
Rogue Waves...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz7FP44uwH8
Timely! We just got back from a week in Iceland on Saturday night. The winds were so high that vehicles were being blown off the ring road east of Vik. They had to close it. The weather was atrocious but when you're sitting in a hot spring, it doesn't matter. The scenery is spectacular but we did wonder what it would be like in the high season. Extremely crowded, I'm guessing. And they don't have the tourist infrastructure the great US national parks have.
There is a clever television series made in Iceland-- a satire on both Iceland's conventionality in public life and the sexual libertinage rife in its private life. It was a good accompaniment to Halldór Laxness's The Atom Station and Under the Glacier. I can't remember what it is called.
Sneaker waves are not a problem on Lake Mendota, but they can be a problem in the Pacific Northwest.
We have plenty of sneaker waves in Australia. Many get caught by them when fishing off the rocks
Oregon Coast: sneaker wave of planet earth
Oregon coast: sneaker wave capital of planet Earth
She's trying, politely, to deal with Iceland's problem of too many tourists. They get 2 million a year, and they only have 388,000 actual residents.
I went to a small shop in a touristy town once (Ocean City NJ, I think), and there was a shirt that read, "WELCOME TO OCEAN CITY. GIVE US YOUR MONEY, AND LEAVE."
@RMc, Ocean City, Maryland, is pretty much the same.
Our favorite beach is just north of the town of Yachats, Oregon, where fabulous long fat fingers of old basalt pour down over the sand and ocean. it's fantastic at high tide, where from our favorite little motel balcony we watch waves crash up like geysers from the mini canyons formed in the basalt catacombs.
a very restorative place to spend time.
But there's a monument you can't miss along the trail, it is a sober warning by honoring the loss of two young men in 2011, part of a high school field trip, that got caught in such a gully at high tide and were swept away.
Respect.
https://youtu.be/9txBFoS-wEs
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