Day 4 – Skaftafell, Jökulsárlón, and the Aurora (Mike)

The day we had planned on having turned out to be quite a bit different than they day we ended up having.  Up until today we’ve had absolutely gorgeous weather.  Some of the natives have remarked at how lucky we’ve been the last couple days.  Plenty of sun with just enough wind and cloud cover.

A Change of Plans

The original agenda today was to head over to Skaftafell National Park and explore the glacier with a guided glacier hike.  The weather, however, had different plans.  We woke up to quite a bit of rain and wind.  When we arrived at Skaftafell, the guide in the outpost informed us that all of the morning hikes had been cancelled. The wind at the top of the glacier was just too severe.  He advised we come back at 2pm as they hoped the weather would clear by then.

Jökulsárlón

We decided to take the free time and head up to Jökulsárlón.  Jökulsárlón literally means Glacier Lagoon.  If you take a look at the map below, you can see why…

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Google Earth View of the Glacier Lagoon

The glacier melts and pieces break off, and try to make it out to the sea, but the entrance to ocean is fairly narrow causing an incredible lagoon filled with blocks of the glacier just floating there.  We explored as much as the wind and rain would allow.  We even got to see a seal swim around!

[Due to the weather conditions, most of the photos from the lagoon are just what we could get with our cell phones]
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The size of the glacier pieces are quite impressive up close! These are some of the “small” ones!

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Hard to tell from the picture, but this is a seal! We got to watch swim and play for several minutes.

A Change of Plans pt. 2

We explored Jökulsárlón as long as we could bare. Christina’s generally water-proof jacket ended up generally soaked, so we decided it was time to head back to Skaftafell and try to dry it out on our way.

Unfortunately, when we got there, conditions hadn’t changed and all glacier tours for the rest of the day were cancelled.  All is not lost as we will likely schedule a tour for a different glacier later in the trip.

We headed back to the hotel and thought we’d start planning the next few days out (as well as finish up yesterday’s blog post!).

Back at the Hotel – Change of Weather

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After about an hour or two at the hotel, the rain stopped and the clouds began to clear and I was able to get the shot below.  One thing we haven’t mentioned yet is that the Fosshotel Nupar is out in the middle of nowhere with some of the most breathtaking views.  This is a shot just a few steps away from the door to our room.

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We decided that we’d head over to a nearby village called Kirkjubæjarklaustur.  On our way the light was gorgeous and we saw this cute little waterfall, so we had to stop.  Silly me – I had left the camera back at the hotel, so we stopped and took some camera phone shots instead.

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The little diner we ate at was exceptionally good, Systrakaffi if you find yourself in the area, and reasonably priced (at least, for Iceland that is).

After getting back to the hotel, we decided to go exploring a little bit and see if we could spot the Northern Lights since the skies had cleared considerably and the activity was generally favorable.

At first, we didn’t really see much, just a few lingering clouds.  I decided to try snapping a few shots of the stars and the landscape to see if there was anything interesting that could be done with them.  Wait – what was that?  I look at the camera’s view screen and there was a burst of green!

Our first - accidental - shot of the northern lights!

Our first – accidental – shot of the northern lights!

A lot of times, when the aurora is first starting, it looks like a cloud that’s just not quite a cloud.  It moves differently, maybe has a very slight tint to it, etc.

We started taking as many pictures as possible with as many different settings as possible.  Aura can be trying… you’re basically doing it blind. You have to hope you set your focus right, guess that you’ve got everything in frame and hope your exposure is long enough and that you (or the wind) don’t jostle the camera too much.

Photography Nerd Stuff:
For anyone interested in trying to photograph the Aurora, here are a few of the things that were helpful for me...
1. Switch to Aperture Priority mode and set your aperture as wide as possible (f2.8 or lower if possible). 
2. Set your ISO as high as possible (3200 or higher) and shoot some quick test shots.  These won't be usable as the digital noise is too high, but it will allow you to see if the Aurora is actually happening, and if your shot is composed well.
3. Use a tripod! Your exposure will be quite long, so a good tripod is an absolute must.
4. Drop your ISO back down to 400 or 800 and take a few shots. The shutter speed will likely be 20-30 seconds long. Use a timer or remote to trigger the shot as the vibrations from your finger have potential to move the camera enough with an shutter speed that long.
5. If it's a particularly windy night, like it was for us, wrap the neck strap around the tripod leg to prevent it from getting blown around and shaking the camera... this was a problem with some of my first shots.

We continued chasing the clouds that didn’t quite look like clouds for a while (they get easier to spot once you know what to look for)… and got some pretty good shots.

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Things eventually died down enough and we headed to bed.  I began editing some of the photos above in anticipation of this blog post when Christina exclaimed that I had to go outside right now.  She spotted an amazing streak from inside the room, without her glasses on – a feat in and of itself.

The Aurora had picked up.  It was no longer a “cloud”. All the colors were clearly visible with the naked eye.  Greens, reds, and purples streaking across the sky. It was absolutely breath taking!

I quickly got my camera set up and snapped as many pictures as I could.  Here’s the first one from that group. I’m hoping I can edit some more down and get quite a few more.

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It was simply unbelievable. Hopefully this is the first of several more sightings for us. Now that we know what to look for we may have some better luck too.

Today is a big road-trip day.  We drive from our hotel near Skaftafell, all the way past Reykjavik and up to the Western region of Iceland. The landscape across the southern coast is incredible and changes every few minutes.  We’re going to try taking a photo every 20-30 minutes of driving to hopefully get a feel for the changes along the way.  Here’s a map of our drive today if you’re interested.

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