Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.08.2004, Page 36

OUTSIDE REYKJAVÍK
The Patented Icelandic
Underwater Massage by Marcie Hume
The afternoon I spent at the Blue Lagoon was similar to what I imagine it to be like on
the deck of a ship in a squall. Winds, which can only be described as gale-force, slapped at
my face and I feared for my eardrums as they were blasted with surf. It was exciting and
only slightly annoying.
I was obviously worried about my massage, the
focus of my entire day, which was meant to be
executed whilst floating on a small thin raft
allowing the body to be partially submerged in
the water. I didn’t want my 20 minutes of glory
to turn into a human sacrifice in which my skin
would be eroded by the milieu of wind and
waves.
But once I mounted the floating device and was
spritzed with almond-scented lagoon mineral
oil, I was covered in a heavy cloth, and I sunk
into the womb-like environment that was my
Blue Lagoon massage. I wasn’t sure how it would
work, but once I was there I closed my eyes and
never looked back.
In an assortment of suave masseuse secret moves,
Eva (my masseuse and new favourite person in
the world) mostly used the weight of my body,
assisted by gravity, to apply pressure to various
muscles. In a span of 20 minutes she managed
to adequately loosen up my shoulders, upper and
lower back, scalp and face, all whilst I drifted,
imagining that I was in the middle of nowhere.
With my eyes closed I couldn’t really tell what
direction I was facing as she rotated me on the
floating massage board, and in floating my body
became light and somehow intangible. It is a
state which many people have called, according
to Eva, “heaven”.
But despite being in the ultimate state of rest, I
really wanted to know if people ever fall off the
floating cushions. In my first moments I had
felt some uncertainty in my comatose drifting,
and Eva confirmed that a few others are equally
untrusting in the initial moments. Often the
more worried of us grab the sides of the cushion,
but the device supports everyone, absolutely ev-
eryone, she reassured me. I prodded her for some
little morsel of a floating disaster story. “Well,
once a girl slid off,” Eva said, “but she just stayed
floating. She was completely relaxed. She didn’t
even notice.”
I asked Eva if she’d ever given a massage to
anyone exciting. “The President of Iceland,” she
said. Did he fall off his raft? “No,” she said.
All types of people sign up for massages at the
Blue Lagoon, large and small, foreign and very
foreign. “Icelanders don’t come here very much,”
Eva told me, “just because it’s in Iceland. They
wait to get spa treatments when they go abroad.”
The exception is the current Icelandic Olympic
team, who come as part of their obviously rigor-
ous training regimen. I suppose I can understand
how most Icelanders would avoid the Blue
Lagoon massage as a tourist-oriented affair, but I
also can’t think of many better ways to spend an
afternoon in a blustery storm.
The lagoon massage pool can also be a cathartic
place, and Eva encounters a crier once in a while.
It seems to be a normal side effect of the mas-
sage; a person can become so ultimately relaxed
that, yep, the tears start to flow. People seem to
like to chat, or even discuss their problems. As
far as therapy goes, it’s not too expensive. And
at the end of the massage, you are left covered in
the soft blanket, floating for as long as you like. H.S.
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