I’m trying to put my fingers on it, but I recall some discussion in the last two months about some hot springs at the end of the road north of one of our hotel stays, and this was understood to be the furthest north point on our trip. From looking carefully at the West Fjords map, I am guessing this might be the town of Bolungarvik which is perhaps 25 miles north of Ísafjörður. Our plans have changed and we will be staying in Ísafjörður only one night now, so the hot springs visit may not happen (if I’m even remembering all of this correctly in the first place).

 

But assuming we do visit Bolungarvik, the center of town there is at coordinates 66° 9’ 35.1” N 23° 15’ 11.4” W (we tend to call these GPS coordinates these days, but before global positioning satellite technology, they were simply longitude and latitude coordinates). The Arctic Circle lies at 66° 30’ N latitude. So we will be within about 20.25’ of the Arctic Circle. In practical terms, that’s about 23 miles as the crow flies. Is that a big deal, you ask? You bet your sweet geekdom it is! And regardless of whether or not this particular destination is reached, I will be sure to log the furthest north point we do reach, and will post it here.

It is now fewer than five weeks before I leave on my trip. I've worked out our daily stop spots for the "pre-trip" portion and our hotels for the remainder of the journey. I'm including a map of sorts here just to give an idea of the scope of our travels. A handful of these locations have been difficult to identify using various maps and my friend Google. But I think I'm close at this point - certainly close enough for the map scale below.

You may want to open the map in a new window to make it large enough to read. Conversely, here is a link (duh):

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=208158349163691017690.0004e1e195fc61735b4e2&msa=0

I'll but another link at the bottom of this blog. Which reminds me, I have added a banner for the current weather in Reykjavik, right above the banner for my home weather. Fun to compare.

More later.

What Not to Take

This is what I took on our last trip - to Scotland - which I didn't use on the trip.

Of course there are things here which I might still want/need. I didn't wear my sweater or my stocking cap because it was never cool enough. I managed with one pair of jeans because the weather was by-and-large dry. For the same reason I didn't need to use my poncho. I'm not leaving any of these things behind on this trip - if I do it will pour down rain day and night for the full week and a half. If I take them I can keep them neatly packed in my suitcase and enjoy the warm dry weather.

This remains a cautionary photo though. I need to think about each item. What is the real likelihood I will use it? This will be the most photo-intensive trip I have ever been on, so extra camera batteries, memory cards, lens filters, external hard drive, flashlight, etc., are necessities. I see a calculator I won't need. Some Orkney Island maps and trail book which won't be worth a tinker's damn in Iceland. I won't bother with my mini articulating tripod either - I'm taking a real tripod this trip. And the PJ bottoms are probably a waste of space.

The logbook? I would think, yes.

The Trip

In exactly six weeks I will be flying along with eight others to Keflavik International Airport in Iceland. Five of us are arriving a little earlier than the others, and we will be visiting the southernmost portion of Iceland for three days before joining with the remaining four travelers in Reykjavík. From there we will travel north and west to a remote section of the island known as West Fjords.

We all will have in common one thing; we will each be carrying cameras and the associated devices which round out a photographer's kit. One or two members of our group are accompanying photographers, but are not themselves photographers per se. Of the photographers, I am the least experienced, though I will not be the youngest traveler. Several travelers have been on such journeys to Iceland before; three of them together. Many times. Two of these are my sister-in-law Sandy, and her husband, John (aka, my brother). Another is Bill who is the author of this trip. I have not met any of the others who will be joining us, and I have not met Bill except in social media. We have all introduced ourselves to one another and it is because of this that I know I am the least experienced. I can only improve from here.

I will be posting to this blog during my visit to Iceland. I will most likely also be posting to Flickr, Facebook, and a group blog. This is of course assuming I have the time. We will be driving each day, setting up our equipment, taking pictures like mad, moving our equipment, grabbing meals, and likely falling into bed exhausted. So this posting business may be a bit dicey. Maybe I'll just stick to this blog. We'll see...

I'll send this address out to anyone who cares to follow me. Though it's still six weeks away. I just get excited about these things.