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Tuesday, May 11, 2021
China’s fishing fleet, the world’s largest, drives Beijing’s global ambitions
Recent satellite imagery shows Chinese vessels anchored at a disputed
South China Sea reef.
Photo : Satellite image 2021 Maxar Technologies
From WSJ by Chuin-Wei Yap
Governments and conservation groups accuse the ships of fishing illegally and advancing military goals
In Beijing’s push to become a maritime superpower, China’s fishing fleet has grown to become the world’s largest by far—and it has turned more aggressive, provoking tensions around the globe.
The fleet brings in millions of tons of seafood a year to feed the country’s booming middle class. Foreign governments, fishermen and conservation groups have accused the fleet of illegal fishing, including by using banned equipment and venturing into other countries’ territory.
That fishing has upended local economies and threatens ecosystems including around the Galápagos Islands, affected governments and fishermen say.
The Chinese fleet is helping the country stake out a bigger presence at sea, including by building a world-wide network of ports.
The vessels, rigged with winches and booms and pulling giant nets, can be twice as large as a naval patrol boat, at an average of almost 200 feet long.
Fishing crews have helped establish island settlements in waters subject to territorial disputes with neighbors.
An analysis of transponder and global vessel registration data indicates Chinese boats involved in distant-water operations—meaning outside a country’s own territorial waters—total as many as 17,000, according to London-based researcher Overseas Development Institute.
Official data and analyst estimates indicate China’s closest competitors in the industry, Taiwan and South Korea, have some 2,500 such vessels combined.
China’s foreign ministry said that legally registered vessels were far lower, at 2,701 as of 2019. China agreed to cap its fishing vessels at 3,000 in 2017, in response to World Trade Organization efforts to cut government subsidies that contribute to overfishing.
The ministry said that Beijing implements the world’s strictest oversight on distant-water fishing. It has toughened legal penalties on errant fishing in recent years.
Ecuador and Peru placed their navies on alert last year to track hundreds of Chinese trawlers massing near South American fisheries.
In Asia, governments and the fishing industry have complained of hundreds of Chinese incursions in their domestic waters. Indonesia has taken to periodically detonating seized Chinese trawlers in hopes it will deter other Chinese boats from poaching in its waters.
CHINA
EAST CHINA SEA
The sea near China is already one of the most crowded fishing areas in the world, pushing the country's distant-water fleet further away.
SOUTH CHINA SEA
The U.S. has signaled rising concern over the alliance of China's military and its fishing fleet, which has helped set up island settlements in the area.
GHANA
Fishermen in Ghana say dozens of Chinese trawlers have come into Ghana's own waters, targeting shallow-dwelling fish. China's foreign ministry said its fleet must comply with local laws.
SAMOA
In May, Indonesian authorities began investigating a Chinese tuna trawler where four Indonesian fishermen died on the high seas off Samoa, including allegations of illegal fishing. Beijing said it was looking into the case.
GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS
In August, hundreds of Chinese trawlers gathered near Ecuador's Galápagos Islands. Beijing said in response to concerns from Ecuadorian authorities that it requires its fishers abroad to comply with local laws.
From 2010 to 2019, Chinese-flagged or owned vessels accounted for 21% of global fishing offenses logged by Spyglass, a Vancouver-based fishing crime database, up from 16% the previous decade.
A 2019 global ranking by Geneva-based Global Initiative, a transnational crime watchdog, placed China first in the prevalence of illegal fishing by nations.
In the West African nation of Ghana, fishermen say that dozens of Chinese trawlers, equipped to fish at all depths, are venturing daily from their deep-sea license remits into Ghana’s sovereign waters, targeting shallow-dwelling fish that used to be a local preserve.
“Because the trawlers have depleted our fish stocks at a very fast rate, we all owe debts, and it has made our life extremely difficult,” said Kojo Panyin, a 53-year-old fisherman in Axim, a Ghanaian fishing village.
Such fishing also destroys the nets of local fisherman, he said.
China’s foreign ministry said it requires its fishers abroad to comply with local laws.
For China, the industry feeds a rapidly growing middle class and creates tens of millions of jobs in fishing, aquaculture and seafood processing.
It also reflects China’s growing assertiveness. Distant-water fishing is enshrined in Xi Jinping’s national development blueprint and is a key part of his Belt and Road global infrastructure plan, which includes ocean routes.
“The industry is important for ensuring national food security,” the blueprint says.
“It is of great significance in safeguarding national maritime rights and interests.”
A Chinese fishing boat, which was tested in 2020, has a maximum range of 5,000 nautical miles,
74 beds and 49 fishing spots.
Photo : Huxuejun / SIPA Asia / Zuma Press
Mr. Xi’s plan called for the world-wide development of 29 distant-water fishing bases, which help to project Beijing’s vision of itself at the center of a web of global infrastructure.
In West Africa, Fuzhou Hongdong Pelagic Fishery Co. is using $60 million in state funds to expand a fishing port in Mauritania, China’s largest distant-water base, state media reports say. China has no naval base in the region.
Chinese companies also are building a fishing port in Pakistan, near a major oil route and where Beijing jockeys for geopolitical influence.
First fleet
China’s first distant-water fleet, launched in March 1985, comprised 13 fishing boats cobbled together from ships and personnel lent by freight companies, state records show.
Beijing hoped that the state-owned flotilla, financed with a few hundred thousand U.S. dollars, according to records, would spur China’s engagement with the global economy.
Making Waves
China's demand for seafood has soared over the decades
Sources: Wind (imports); The Stimson Center
In its first full year of operation, the fleet harvested some 20,000 metric tons of seafood, official data show. At first, the country sold almost all of its distant-water catch abroad.
Now the fleet sends two-thirds of its harvest home to China, according to state data.
Since 2015, China’s distant-water catch has averaged two million tons a year, according to state data, which analysts say could undercount the actual total.
The nation now is the world’s largest seafood consumer and in 2019 was the third-largest seafood importer, after Europe and the U.S. Seafood imports to China totaled $15 billion in 2019, double the figure from four years earlier. Ecuador, the world’s largest shrimp exporter, sells twice the volume of shrimp to China as it does to the U.S., France and Spain combined.
While three-quarters of the fishing fleet is now privately owned, the Chinese state maintains a large presence in the industry.
The nation’s largest distant-water firms, China National Fisheries Corp., a unit of an agricultural conglomerate directly managed by the central government, and its subsidiaries, remain state-owned.
Closely held operators keep close ties with the government, rely on state subsidies and often have state investors. The chairman of Fuzhou Hongdong, which is building the port in Mauritania, is a delegate to China’s legislature.
The companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The industry helps China act on territorial claims, such as by sending fishermen to set up settlements on previously unoccupied atolls in the South China Sea.
In turn, the state regularly defends fishing interests.
The Chinese navy, coast guard and paramilitary often join hundreds of fishermen in motorboats in regional seas where China has built artificial islands with military-capable facilities, including air strips, jet fighter hangars and naval bases.
Vietnamese officials say a Chinese coast guard ship sank a Vietnamese fishing boat in April near the Paracel Islands, which both nations claim. Beijing said the Vietnamese vessel collided with the Chinese.
The incident followed Chinese altercations with fishing vessels from other South China Sea claimants such as the Philippines and Indonesia over the years.
‘Rule-breaking’
Maritime law allows coastal states varying levels of control over seas up to 200 nautical miles from their shoreline.
Most states seek to restrict foreign operations in their territorial waters, including fishing.
In October, Malaysia’s maritime authorities detained six Chinese fishing vessels, accusing them of trespassing in its waters.
In August, some 300 Chinese trawlers fished near Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands.
Ecuador said it was the largest gathering of such Chinese vessels, and accused them of using illegal means to evade being identified, such as turning off tracking systems and altering their names.
A large Chinese fishing boat pictured during an overflight by the Ecuadorean Navy patrolling waters around the Galápagos Islands.
Photo : Marcos Pin / EFE / Zuma Press
Ecuadorean defense officials held an August 2020 news conference
about the presence of the Chinese fishing fleet.
Photo : Segundo Mendez, Reuters
Ecuadorean officials said Chinese fishing threatened the biodiversity of the Galápagos, where some animals depend on the squid that the Chinese vessels were netting.
China’s foreign ministry has said Beijing would halt the fleet’s fishing there from September to November.
“Over the past five years, there has been a giant transformational shift with the Chinese distant-water fleet,” said Steve Trent, co-founder of London-based conservation group Environmental Justice Foundation.
“Over the past five years, there has been a giant transformational shift with the Chinese distant-water fleet,” said Steve Trent, co-founder of London-based conservation group Environmental Justice Foundation.
“They are devastating the small [open water] fisheries, the fish that coastal communities depend on for their livelihoods.”
Ghana reserves an area six nautical miles from shore for local fisheries. Chinese trawlers increasingly ignore these poorly policed rules, fishermen and conservation groups say.
The modern Chinese industrial trawler can fish 700 tons a day, a volume that would take the largest African fishing canoe six months to harvest, industry data show.
Residents of Axim, which largely relies on fishing for income, now have to drive to another town 80 miles east to buy the catch from the Chinese, said Mr. Panyin, the fisherman.
Many Ghanaian communities depend entirely on fishing for income.
Photo : EJF Environmental Justice Foundation
Chinese trawlers typically operate under the Ghanaian flag.
Photo : EJF Environmental Justice Foundation
Ghana’s marine police in June detained the Chinese-owned trawler Lurongyuanyu 956, accusing its operators of using illegally-sized nets.
“You see this vessel through global fishing logs, going back and forth from coastal waters to Ghana,” said Dyhia Belhabib, Spyglass’ developer and principal investigator for conservation group Ecotrust Canada.
China’s foreign ministry said it had taken note of the allegations.
State records show the vessel is owned by eastern China-based Rongcheng Marine Fishery Co. Staff there declined to make anyone available for comment.
Fishing communities often are overshadowed by larger priorities in bilateral trade.
Ghana’s fishing output last year of around $480 million is a fraction of its $7.3 billion annual trade with China, which includes oil and metals. Beijing funds big Ghanaian projects from dams to theaters.
How should governments monitor fishing by other countries?
In neighboring Sierra Leone, where China has invested billions of dollars to develop mining and highways, local authorities say that illegal Chinese fishing drains $29 million annually in state revenue—but that they are ill-equipped to police it.
In August, Sierra Leone’s fisheries ministry said it had lost track of three Chinese-owned trawlers that fled after being charged by police a month earlier with illegally fishing within Sierra Leone’s territorial waters.
Even on the high seas, which are relatively free from the scrutiny of sovereign authorities, Chinese trawlers have come under investigation.
In May, Indonesian authorities began probing a Chinese tuna trawler where four Indonesian fishermen died while on the South Pacific Ocean.
Beijing said it was looking into the case. Indonesian fishermen working aboard say that they were made to harvest shark fins, a popular delicacy in China, in breach of regionally-agreed rules on fishery management.
“From October, we stopped catching tuna,” said fisherman Rizky Alvian.
“From October, we stopped catching tuna,” said fisherman Rizky Alvian.
“Every day, we catch shark. Just shark.”
A Chinese fishing vessel in the Whitsun Reef located in the disputed South China Sea.
Photo : Satellite image 2021 Maxar Technologies
Links :
Monday, May 10, 2021
Why the sailing yacht movement is greener than ever
From Boat International by Marilyn Mower
There are few more eco-friendly ways to travel than by sailing yacht, but, thanks to fresh innovations, the future is ever greener.
If you want to go around the world, the only way to do it with any conscience is on a sailing boat,” asserts Wally Yachts CEO Luca Bassani.
Indeed, environmental sensitivity and mounting scientific and social pressure for reducing fossil-fuel consumption seemed to be making progress until Covid-19 took over the news cycle.
Interestingly, naval architects, designers yacht builders and suppliers have continued nose to the grindstone in anticipation of a future that is not a bounce back but a bounce forward toward a day when far more yachts are powered by sail, and those yachts make an ever smaller environmental impact.
Rather than a green revolution, the actual picture is incremental, “a steady drip, drip, drip,” as naval architect Bill Tripp puts it.
“Progress is an S-shaped curve slowly moving up but then something comes along and the axis shifts and it steepens quickly. That’s what happened with electric cars. It was a very long, low curve, but now you can argue that one of the best cars in the world is electric.”
The Wally 145 has a hybrid propulsion system
Credit: Wally
Is the totally electric boat a possibility?
Definitely for a small boat or yachts that primarily day sail, says Tripp, but a superyacht with its high hotel load is a different matter with a lot of variables.
Let’s take a look at the puzzle pieces emerging for the development of low-to-no impact superyachts.
A good sailing boat is an efficient boat, but “efficient” can mean either faster or less costly to operate, both attractive outcomes but for different reasons and perhaps to different customers.
At yacht builder Southern Wind, the mantra is “Improving sustainability through efficiency.”
Taking weight out is an everyday battle but the yard attracts customers who like the large but pared-down ethos of its boats and their modest crew requirements.
Credit: Southern Wind Yachts
“One of the complaints about sailing boats during Med cruising season is that the wind is too light and the boat won’t go anywhere in less than six to eight knots of breeze unless it’s motoring. We put our effort into resolving that issue,” says Southern Wind commercial director Andrea Micheli.
“If a boat has a bigger sailplan, it can sail faster and at a lower wind speed. Our new 105 will carry 15 per cent more sail area than our 102-footer [31-metre]. It will sail in four knots true wind! We will go upwind at 4.5 knots and downwind at 4.9 knots. At seven to eight knots of wind, we sail beautifully at eight to nine knots while most of our competitors will be motoring.”
Of course, sail area is not the only string to the yard’s bow.
Boats consume remarkably little energy when sailing; it is the time at anchor with owners and guests aboard when the hotel loads explode.
Even a blue-water cruiser sits for about eight months of the year. Southern Wind has invested in the development of awnings that can generate seven to 20kW of electricity using solar cloth panels that stow in a dedicated deck locker.
Credit: Bill Dixon Yacht Design
“When the owner and guests are gone, we think the boat can be nearly energy self-sufficient when on a mooring or at a dock,” says Micheli.
“It also keeps the boats cooler during the day. You won’t need to supplement as much with a generator or shore power.”
“This summer we delivered Kauris IV, which has huge battery banks,” says Bassani.
“You can motor at 10 knots for eight hours if you don’t have wind. Unfortunately, available solar cells for recharging a yacht of this size are not enough. You can keep a stationary 40-footer [12-metre] charged on solar, but not a superyacht.”
Efficiency also means power management systems and using battery power for peak shaving (upsizing battery banks to draw power off them for silent running or short-term loads) instead of upsizing gensets.
“Based on our real data, the 105 will have two 19kW gensets,” says Micheli. One can power the boat and charge the batteries while the other manages short-term demands or hydraulics for sail hoists. Small gensets will run at 70 to 80 per cent load, which is much better for them. Proprietary software lets crew manage energy generation and use.”
The heights of hybrid
Royal Huisman, which pioneered hybrid power with Ethereal in 2009, has an ongoing complete hybrid re-power of its 43.5-metre Juliet to give it the ability to cruise zero-emissions zones.
The centrepiece is a new gearbox aligned with a sophisticated electric motor/generator for indirect electric propulsion from the battery bank for silent operation, or a generator via the power management system.
The main engine can still turn the prop shaft if necessary or provide electric power to meet the hotel load.
Naval architect Merfyn Owen says that on 25- to 35-metre yachts the main power consumers are air conditioning and refrigeration.
“Adding insulation and scaling back expectations need to be part of the package, but the right combination would be peak shaving. Entering and exiting a harbour at low speed is not good for an engine; it’s better to use electric motors when you only need six knots.”
He has a 25-metre high-latitudes yacht in construction that will enjoy hybrid propulsion.
Credit: Royal Huisman
“We find peak shaving very effective in that crew don’t need to start up another generator for a short period of extra load that can be handled by the batteries,” says Royal Huisman project manager Henriko Kalter.
“Project 404, a 59.7-metre sloop, will be fully diesel-electric, meaning [there will be] no main engines but a system that pulls power for all uses off a grid fed by several smaller generators.
These are just for recharging and can be smaller than mains.
“Let’s say your peak load when everything is on is 100kW, but the rest of the day it drops to around 25kW. It’s not good for a 100kW generator to be running at 25 per cent load – the maintenance is awful. So if we put in a 50kW generator, we charge the batteries when power consumption drops below 50 kW and draw from the batteries when it goes above. It also allows us to use a more basic DC system for everything, which gives us more options, such as two retractable electric drive legs.
“Our ‘smart energy’ approach has two pillars – one to reduce power consumption and one to generate electrical power,” continues Kalter.
“We studied where power is consumed on the boats and it’s primarily the galley and air conditioning, which take 50 per cent of the power. Beyond waste heat recovery, we are also recovering cool air. Ventilation systems just dump cooled air over the side but we are using the previously cooled air to pre-cool the fresh air coming in so the ambient temperature is being reduced in two steps.
“We are also looking at hydrogen and we have been talking to Lloyd’s about storage safety,” says Kalter.
“The problem is availability. Can you go from Antigua to the Med on hydrogen? Probably not. We look to solar and hydro-generators when the boat is under way, [so] it’s not one solution but many contributors to becoming autonomous. We think a totally fossil-free boat is possible.”
Sunreef Yachts’ Eco 80 is covered in solar cells powering enough battery capacity to allow silent mode all night long
Credit: Sunreef
Catamaran builder Sunreef Yachts introduced its Eco line with an 18-metre at Cannes 2019.
Now it has scaled up to a 24-metre that will be available in both power and sailing versions.
“Electric power is the basis but we take it further,” says Sunreef Yachts’ Artur Poloczanski.
“The boats are designed with enough battery capacity to allow silent mode at night, and we use a non-toxic silicon bottom paint that is slicker than most paint, so there is less resistance. We have also used reclaimed teak for the soles inside the boats, and having water makers with purification means you don’t need to lug around plastic bottles.”
A recent source of pride is the yard’s design of integrated carbon-fibre bimini tops that take advantage of new high-output solar cells that can be curved – both saving weight and improving aesthetics.
The E series boats use these same solar cells in curved sections of hulls and decks.
“We believe that 32kW peak generation from solar is achievable. Wind and hydrogeneration add more self-sufficiency,” says Poloczanski.
“Eco design and construction is a main focus for Sunreef now.” Sunreef’s own R&D has led to counter surfaces being made of compressed paper and resin, and components made of flax and basalt fibre, rather than fibreglass.
Tripp has several parallel hybrid projects under construction of sizes varying from 13 to 27 metres.
“It’s the Prius model of batteries and an engine.
Even if you had the 80kW of a Tesla battery pack you could only power your boat for about two and a half hours at full power – there’s not much excitement to that.
You need a source to power the batteries.
Credit: Tom van Oossanen
“Hybrid systems are trickling up from simple systems on small boats and trickling down from huge ships,” says Tripp.
“We found a flywheel alternator that looks like a six-inch pancake that fits between the gearbox and the engine. Under sail [with the propeller set in reverse] you lose maybe half a knot. When more systems are available, there will be more acceptance.
“Hydrogenerators with even a small propeller on a standard shaft can generate about 10kW, which makes them quite practical for small boats,” continues Tripp.
“But superyachts have a different problem because of their greater loads and the number of people aboard. I’m always running into captains who says they have to keep the boat closed down to preserve the fabrics and woods inside. That’s a choice. I think we need to be less precious and design boats to be able to open hatches.”
“You absolutely can regenerate enough energy to cover the hotel loads on a sailing superyacht,” says naval architect Bill Dixon.
“Black Pearl has proven that it’s possible under way with hydrogeneration and solar cells charging battery banks.”
Dixon, a proponent of the Dynarig, is developing concepts that marry the spaces associated with a motor-yacht lifestyle with the green credentials of a sailing yacht. We have enquiries from people now, mostly younger owners, who are putting their companies through sustainability analysis and realise their yacht should meet the same standards.”
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Naval architect Rob Doyle says he’s been “stripping away stuff” from his designs.
“I’m always asking, ‘Do you really need that?’
It turns out owners like natural ventilation and a boat that can be silent for 15 hours.
“Boats got heavier because yards got worried about warranty issues and redundancy [so they] upsized and duplicated gear, adding cost. The lighter we make them, the cheaper it gets. Carbon fibre costs nearly twice the price of aluminium, which is totally recyclable and the hull will be close on weight. It’s often the stuff inside that’s heavy.”
Take the new ClubSwan 80 for example. Currently under construction at Persico Marine, Nautor's Swan's latest addition to its series of performance sailing yachts recycles carbon-fibre from previous moulds by separating the carbon from the resin to create new moulds.
Persico also collects prepreg scraps and ship to a company specialising in medical prostheses.
YYachts, a company based on the concept of light, efficient, uncomplicated boats, plans to show its new 21-metre Y7 Cin Cin at the Cannes show.
Its deck is laid with sustainable engineered wood from Lignia that looks like teak, weighs the same and mellows to the same silver grey.
YYachts also internalises environmental protection.
Founder Michael Schmidt insists that subcontractors come from within a 100-kilometre radius to lower transportation costs and reduce the carbon footprint.
“We digitalised the shipyard as much as possible to reduce travelling and installed LED lighting everywhere. In addition, we use second-hand shipping containers as office space and let a couple of sheep take care of the grass in front of the yard,” he says.
“We are also focusing on new materials we can use on our projects, such as green resin foam generated from recycled PET bottles.”
“If a customer’s company has to meet zero-carbon status by 2030, then their personal possessions probably also should,” says Kalter.
“We are seeing more owners moving in this direction in tender packages we receive, some even coming from motor-yacht owners. It’s not that they want to do regattas, but they don’t want to give up the yachting lifestyle.”
Voicing cautious optimism, Tripp adds, “We’ll see all these things come to the fore, hopefully driven by clients demanding it rather than by naval architects saying you could have it.”
Sunday, May 9, 2021
The swim, official trailer
In 2018, Seeker chronicled Ben Lecomte’s historic swim across the Pacific to raise awareness for the state of our oceans.
Now, Lecomte’s incredible expedition has been turned into a full-length documentary, streaming now on Discovery+. Terms apply.
Watch here: http://bit.ly/dplus-yt »
Watch more Swim | http://bit.ly/TheSwimPlaylist
He swam from Japan to Hawaii and at times saw a piece of plastic in the ocean every three minutes https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/11/us/pac...
"A French man’s attempt to swim across the Pacific Ocean may be over for now, but his campaign to warn the world about the dangers of plastic pollution in the ocean continues."
Six months. 5,700 miles.
One ocean.
Ben Lecomte wants to be first to swim across Pacific.
"Ben Lecomte, a 50-year old Frenchman turned Texan, will slip into the water on Sunday off the coast of Choshi, Japan, and start swimming.
If all goes as planned, he won’t set foot on land for six months. In that time, he plans to swim through the largest collection of trash on the planet, great white shark migration areas, through jellyfish and storms and isolation and monotony."
Man begins to swim across Pacific Ocean, garbage patch and all https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ma...
"Lecomte said he is undertaking the expedition as a kind of existential challenge and to help publicize threats like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — the vast expanse of man-made pollution that fouls that ocean."
Ben Lecomte's historic swim across the Pacific Ocean is a feat that can’t be missed.
Join us as we dive into the most extensive data set of the Pacific Ocean ever collected.
Learn about the technology the Seeker crew is using to deter sharks away from Ben and measure the impact of the long-distance swim on his mind and body.
Ben's core mission is to raise awareness for ocean health issues, so we’ll investigate key topics such as pollution and plastics as he swims closer to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, discover potential consequences from climate change, and examine how factors like ocean currents can impact his progress along the way.
Seeker empowers the curious to understand the science shaping our world.
We tell award-winning stories about the natural forces and groundbreaking innovations that impact our lives, our planet, and our universe.
Links :
- GeoGarage blog : Very long swim : 2 projects across Atlantic and Pacific oceans
Saturday, May 8, 2021
Reynisfjara black sand beach, the most famous beach on the South Coast of Iceland
Reynisfjara is the most famous beach on the South Coast of Iceland.
Its beautiful black sand, powerful waves, and the nearby Reynisdrangar sea stacks make Reynisfjara a truly unique place to visit and a popular filming location (Game of Thrones, Star Wars and more).
Reynisfjara Beach is one of the most well-known black sanded beach in the whole world.
Reynisfjara Beach is one of the most well-known black sanded beach in the whole world.
This is a place of wild and dramatic beauty where the roaring waves of the Atlantic Ocean power ashore with tremendous force.
In 1991, Reynisfjara appeared on the top ten list of the most beautiful non-tropical beaches in the world, and it is very easy to see why it was chosen!
It is said that to stand on Reynisfjara Beach is akin to being in a natural amphitheater where the white water of the Atlantic waves provides the drama.
It is said that to stand on Reynisfjara Beach is akin to being in a natural amphitheater where the white water of the Atlantic waves provides the drama.
At any time of year, and in any light, this is a place of great beauty which will remind people that they can never be far from the powerful forces of nature which shaped the island of Iceland.
Marvel at the power of the ocean but do not stand too close – those masterful waves deserve your respect and can be quite dangerous if you get too close!
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