Iceland: Picnic Tourists Rescued From Iceberg

A group of American tourists on holiday in Iceland had to be rescued after the ice they decided to picnic on broke off and floated away.

The five had erected a folding table and chairs and settled down to enjoy their lunch when the piece of ice they had chosen suddenly separated from the land.

It was floating in the freezing seas around the Fjallsárlón glacial lagoon for about an hour before the authorities could be alerted and rescuers arrived in a boat.

One of the picnickers had managed to jump off as the ice separated and set off to raise the alarm.

By the time a team from the Hornafjörður sea rescue arrived the tiny berg was 10 to 15 metres out into the lagoon.

The lagoon, which is connected to the sea by an inlet, is a lake about a mile wide at the end of the Vatnajökull glacier and is about 150 miles east of the capital Reykjavik.

Páll Sigurður Vignisson, a volunteer for ICE-SAR, told NBC News: "The ice was solid when they got there, but when they set the table and chairs the wind changed and the next minute they were blown some 10-15 metres into the lagoon.

"The scene was comical—they were sitting on the chairs around a table, on a piece of floating ice.

"But the iceberg could have cracked or flipped over any minute, throwing them into very deep, almost frozen waters."

When Mr Vignisson first reached the group he said the tourists were, "not at all scared, pretty calm, laughing and joking about the whole thing, despite that they had been stuck floating for about an hour.

"They just didn't realise the risks they were running. They thought they were doing something real cool."

The police were called, but they decided not to press charges after speaking to the group.

About 20 tourists a year are thought to get in trouble around the perilous waters around the country, which is on the fringes of the Arctic Circle.