Diamond Beach

Diamond Beach lies on the Breiðamerkursandur outwash plain in south-east Iceland, immediately below the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon. Icebergs calving from the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier float across the lagoon, out through a short channel, and are washed back onto the black sand by the surf.

The lagoon is new. Breiðamerkurjökull reached almost to the sea in 1900; as it retreated, meltwater filled the basin it had carved, and Jökulsárlón first appeared in the 1930s. It has grown continuously since and is now among the deepest lakes in Iceland. The beach exists as a consequence — the ice arriving on it is a direct product of a glacier in retreat, and the site is an unusually legible demonstration of what that looks like.

The sand is black basalt and the ice on it ranges from fist-sized to house-sized, clear or blue depending on age and density. The Atlantic here is violent, the sneaker-wave risk is the same as at Reynisfjara further west, and people have been swept off this beach. Climbing on stranded ice is dangerous — the blocks roll without warning. Fjallsárlón, a smaller lagoon ten minutes west, is quieter and closer to its glacier, and the two together show the same process at different stages.

There is a car park, toilets and nothing else. Seals live in the lagoon and are usually visible from the bridge. The ring road makes this a stop rather than a destination, and most people arrive between Vík and Höfn.

The ice on this sand came out of a lagoon that did not exist in 1900 and grows every year the glacier retreats, which makes the beach a measurement rather than a view. Stay well back from the water — sneaker waves on this coast have swept people out — and do not climb on the blocks, which roll without warning. What is there changes daily.