Iceland: Epilogue Part 2

Seeing the sights and sounds

In my 58 weeks in Iceland I tried to see as much of the country as was available to me, a disadvantage was that I do not possess a drivers license and so my independent travelling based around the availability of friends also travelling. Don't get me wrong this was a great way to see much of the country but of course not a regular opportunity. But a huge advantage to me was that as part of the tourist industry I was able to claim free travel with multiple companies! This meant I would have to travel fully as a tourist in large groups, but I must saved thousands of pounds (due to the extraordinary fees they charge) by going with these companies.

Ah Gullfoss (The Golden Waterfall), I managed to visit you in every single season of the year! But you looked at your best when covered in ice and snow. This was taken in November, I also visited in January and you were even prettier then! This was part of the Golden Circle tour mentioned in the first part, I ended up seeing the circle four times!

And of course part of the Golden Circle tour is the mighty geysir Strókkur! These pictures were taken on my final visit to the geysir. The first is a rather beautiful show of the eruption from distance. You can see how huge the eruption can be when compared to the tiny people around its base. And the second is the reason I visited 4 times! I final got my alien egg photo! Just as Strókkur erupts there is a brief moment when the water surface rises and the eruption builds underneath. It is a difficult but gorgeous shot to take.

Now this was my favourite destination in Iceland. If you know me well then you probably know I have an unhealthy fascination with ice. Well this is Jökulsárlon. The glacial lagoon, this lies at the base of the largest glacier in Europe, Vatnajökull, and is an area where icebergs break off this glacier then float out to sea.

You can get a boat ride through this lagoon so you can get up close with the icebergs, which was just sensational. I was so happy here!

There is also a surprise waiting at the lagoon, a nesting Arctic Tern colony. This is situated by the path, unfortunately if you go near a Tern nest they will attack with force. And because I was already in a giddy mood I decided to stand in the middle of the colony and get attacked in order to get terrifying pictures such as this! The good news is that I know they don't really hurt that much now.

My final big journey came in Vestmannaeyar, The Westman Islands.

The main island of the group is Heimaey (Home Island) and is dominated by the two volcanoes on the tiny island. The second, and one pictured, is very new as it was only created in 1973 when the first had a huge eruption. This devastated the island and created a huge new vent which became this volcano. A reminder to the the people that destruction is never far, but also that they have survived even the hardest times.

Now this is just a picture to further highlight my back luck with birds. I attempted to scale the new volcano but could not get past the base as this Oystercatcher began to attack my head. At first this was amusing as I could get great pictures (RED EYE OF DOOM!) and I had never heard of this behaviour from this bird before. But I soon backed off as this is a big bird with a very big beak, and I didn't fancy being impaled.

Vestmannaeyar is home to around 1.2 million Atlantic Puffins every summer. Climbing up a puffin nesting cliff I was able to get extremely close to many puffins and snap what are some of my best pictures I've ever taken. I got hundreds of puffin pictures in my time here but this one is just gorgeous.

And here is me at a few sights doing a pose. The first is a basalt column formation along the south coast much like the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. The second is me with my favourite Icelandic waterfall, Seljalandsfoss. This is my favourite because, as you can see, you can walk behind it! It is beyond beautiful there, especially as on the day I went we had complete sunshine!

So this was part 2! So far there has a conspicuous absence of whales, but that is because they deserve their own section. Part 3 coming up in 3.....2.....1.......

Thanks for reading!

Iceland: Epilogue Part 1

My last post was actually quite a while ago, unfortunately there was an incident with my shoulder and a dislocation. So I had a period off work and of course couldn't lift my camera for a while!

And well that encompassed almost the entirety of my time left in Iceland! As I write this I am back in the UK, it has been 4 days since I left the land of giants and elves. And so it's time for my official goodbye and give a summary of my adventure.

Beginnings

So it was on the 24th July 2013 when I made my arrival Iceland where I would spend a week in Reykjavík. 

Here I am!

While I was there I would see the Golden Circle for the first time, the combination of the water Gullfoss, geysir Strókkur (pictured above) and national park Þingvellir. And I would even go whale watching with Elding, who would later become my employers though I didn't know this at the time! This was just a week though as I would then part ways with my family as a moved north to....

Húsavík

Now anyone who has spent over 6 minutes talking to me will have heard this town mentioned, this is because undoubtedly this town stole my heart.

A view of the town from the mountain behind the town.

Just look how gorgeous Húsavík is! Picturesque...

And I can't talk about Húsavík without mentioning the greatest night I have ever had, nothing else comes close to perfection but this was pretty much that...

So imagine a group of very close friends, a wooden hot tub located on the edge of a cliff overlooking Skjálfandi Bay and a good supply of beer. Put those three together and you have a good night, add a fantastic northern lights display over the bay. At that point life reaches a peak.

Húsavík was two unforgettable months of my life. Of course there was more to it than what I've mentioned here but I shall get to those things later. For now my next destination and final permanent one would be...

Reykjavík

And so on October 1st I became a city boy! Moving to the capital (and only) city of Iceland. For the next two months I would be a researcher for Elding and actually spend the next 6 months living on a boat in Reykjavík harbour.

Here we have Reykjavík city seen from the water, bathed in snow! Safe to say that at far as capital cities go, this is incredibly scenic.

And here was my home for a while! Again bathed in snow, the winter here was.... interesting. And by interesting I mean REALLY cold. But now I have a fantastic tolerance for the cold so I guess it was worth it.

And so these were the places I would call home, in the city I did also rent an apartment for a while. So from October until December I was a researcher with Elding acting on a voluntary basis, but in January Elding made the decision to hire me as a tour guide! Seeing as I can only speak one language (in northern English too!) and had never had any experience in that field before this was certainly a brave decision but one that would serve to change my Icelandic journey massively!

Stages of Jack from left to right: Researcher for North Sailing in Húsavík; Researcher for Elding in Reykjavík; Guide for Elding in Reykjavík

Of course this meant my original plan to stay in Iceland until around February was out the window and of course I ended up leaving in September! This extra time through the summer meant I could actually do some travelling around the country which I will cover in part 2 of my epilogue! Dun dun duuuuuun!

Thanks for reading!

My Icelandiversary! Here's to 6 more weeks.

I arrived in Iceland on July 24th 2013, it started with a week in Reykjavík city on holiday. Then August 1st I arrived in Húsavík where the next two months would serve to be some of the most influential and memorable of my life. I can never thank North Sailing enough for the time we enjoyed up north. My love affair with Húsavík continues to this day and I still dream of returning as soon as I can. This was where I experienced my first of many species of cetacean and the northern lights. I will always remember the night when we all decided to go up to the local hot tub with a bunch of beers. As we soaked and drank the northern lights proceeded to burst over Skjálfandi bay. At that point it was clear life wouldn't get much better.
Then on October 1st I moved down to Reykjavík to continue my volunteer work for Elding, this continued through to December. And then in January Elding hired me as a guide for them. And if I have to thank anyone for everything I've achieved here it would have to be Elding.
Trying to list everything that has happened here would simply undersell it. All I can really do is enjoy the last 6 weeks of my time here in Iceland.

Leaving Iceland, well that'll be hard. But I guess its best to cross that bridge when it arrives.

But for now I'll say to my Húsavík girls; Ailie, Naomi, Charla, Tania, Dunja thank you for the G&Ts and more laughs than I would have thought possible.
And to Elding crew; Megan and Freydís who had the fantastic idea to hire me.
Soffia for sharing the duty of being a novice guide in the winter though after you dropped the mic into the sea the new one is pretty unreliable... grrr!
Linda, Dominik and Carine for being awesome housemates and great guides.
To my fellow volunteers during my research phase in Reykjavík; Loes you were a proper tea buddy who taught me some Dutch that has proved invaluable in impressing my favourite tourists, the Dutch! Megan B, you were the most adventurous person to ever grace this company and just so you know you'll find me in Vancouver Island as soon as I can trying to hug to Orca there!

Skál Ísland. Takk fyrir allt!

Here's to 6 more weeks.

July 18-22

There's three days to cover this time. First I'll cover the latest wildlife trend that's been occurring in the bay, it started last week while I was back in the UK and has carried on through the present. We've had numerous phases of behaviour from animals that come and go, March-April was basically Humpback season, May was full of excellent Minkes that were feeding and being interactive, June and half of July have been pretty poor to be honest. It's all been very 6/10.
But now it's much better! We've had a real influx of White-Beaked Dolphins in the bay, and many of them have been very curious and playful with the boat.

You can see how close they get, plus I love it when you see them under the surface just as they take a breath.

This is great for perspective, mere metres from the boat!

They often use the energy and motion created by the movement of the boat to leap and surf around us. It's a fantastic sign that we are having a mutually beneficial interaction.

During a midnight sun tour we had a really beautiful sunset, here it illuminates the volcanic glacier Snæfellsjökull (Sny-fells-yeu-kukl) and the cruise ship beside it serves to frame it.
Interestingly when this cruise ship set off a passenger had a heart attack and the rescue teams from Reykjavík flew out to assist, it was an interesting sight.

The best thing about sunsets is how the light changes constantly, you should always watch the sky just to see the light change.

Sunsets always looks great out of focus, I had some fun with the manual focus for this one.

This is from a different day to the rest of the dolphins but you can see how this dolphin has a very serious wound. This is 99% a bite wound, and how red it is shows how it must be fresh. In Ólafsvík recently there was a sighting of Orca attacking dolphins, this could be one of the survivors. Well done fella!

And we should always remember the whales! Here's quite a nice shot of a Minke Whale, you can see the head of this whale as it breached the surface. Speaking of that there was a tour recently where we had the pleasure of seeing a Minke Whale breach 5 times!!! It was around 1km away but it was distinctly a minke throwing its body out of the water, because this is me though I couldn't get a picture. I was a little busy yelling and screaming, I've developed a bit of a company reputation for reacting loudly to big situations. That usually means I get distracted and don't use my camera.

Thanks for reading!

There's always more to discover in Iceland

Last week I took another trip, though this one was a 2 day trip to Vestmannæyar (The Westman Islands) to have an explore of what is reputed to be a beautiful Archipelago. I only visited the main (and only inhabited) island named Heimaey.
Even on the ferry trip over to the island the adventure began, I spotted a Minke Whale in the distance. I pointed this out to nearby passengers and ended up guiding the ferry trip, once a guide a guide!
The island itself is incredible, there are two volcanoes of which one is just 40 years old after the first had a huge eruption which created a second huge crater. It is also the largest Atlantic Puffin colony in Iceland with around 1.2 million breeding puffins coming to the island every summer.
So if you want to be literally surrounded by puffins this is the place to be! It is also a photographers paradise as you will see now!

The volcano hovers above the town, both intimidating and beautiful.

The harbour area is surrounded by mountains and lava fields.

As I walked through the new lava fields there was a pair of Golden Plovers that put on a bit of a show. Here is the male.

You can see how new these lava fields are, still so bright red!

The female Golden Plover posing in a small field.

Have you ever been attacked by an Oystercatcher? Because this was a very angry one that was pretty terrifying.

Though it did give me some great picture opportunities

Yay for more Icelandic Horses!

The highlight was of course the many many puffins that were on the island!

My favourite picture that I took, this one goes into my hall of highlights!

This particular puffin was excellent, I got extremely close to this one without it caring about my presence.

That moment when you think you recognise someone but aren't sure, I'll just have a stealthy look...

I'm actually back in the UK right now but I'll be back in Iceland on the 17th, then just 6-7 more weeks left....

Thanks for reading!

The best trip of the last few months

Lately the trips have been.... sub-par. Terrible weather and poorly behaved animals mean that no matter how much effort we put into our guiding we simply can't achieve what we want. This is the most infuriating thing you can imagine for a guide, and something that other professions don't experience.
So today was a matter of utter relief! Due to terrible conditions in our normal bay we sailed from Grindavík on the south coast, we haven't done this in many months! Today was actually a day-off for me but frankly you should never pass up a trip from Grindavík. When we sail from there you either have the best tours possible, or nothing.
The morning trip was actually one of the latter, no animals were seen. But I wasn't on the morning trip, and I am an orca magnet.

So we sailed from the south this afternoon in an attempt to be more successful, we started by spotting a HUGE blow in the distance. Frankly anything that isn't a Minke Whale is exciting (I'm rather bored by them) and this certainly wasn't a minke. In fact due to the size of the blow we had thought it was something as large as a Fin Whale or Sei Whale, it turned out to be two Humpback Whales travelling side by side thus the huge looking blow. We actually saw four Humpbacks but all of them were diving for very long times so we never really got a good look at them. This was exacerbated by the fact that we were surrounded by ORCA! Killer Whales! (Orcinus orca)

Okay... surrounded is an exaggeration as it was a pod of six which were swimming around an area close to our boat, most likely feeding. But as orcas normally are, they were very nonplussed by our boat and were calmly swimming very close and around our boat.

A female with her calf swimming up to her.

You can spot the male due to the very large dorsal fin

But you see he is quite young, no hump on the dorsal fin means he is below 16 years old.

You can see the comparison between the sexes here. Female left and male right.

We were treated to a number of incredible behaviours, one orca was leaping and some were throwing their tails around. This was the only one of these behaviours I could photograph.

Love this pic of three orca travelling side by side

So there was one large, but quite young male with a number of grown females and a few juveniles, plus a calf!

Thanks for reading!