Daylight in Reykjavik

1030pm, June in Reykjavik

Woke up really early at my sister-in-law's place. After brushing my teeth and washing my face, it was only 6 am, might as well do some research on daylight in Reykjavik that I promised.

Back to the day we arrived in Reykjavik, we were intrigued still by the daylight hours and found out that there is 24-hour daylight there.  Of course, we have to venture out to experience it.  Went out after the second seating dinner and walked around the dock area.  We got to see the sun still. It was around 1030pm or so.  A few minutes later, someone observed that the sun was a little higher, also with photographic evidence.  I have to admit that the sun looked a little higher at that later time.  That brought on the debate about whether the sun was rising or setting. Traditional wisdom would say that it was setting. Ship brochure said that the sun was going to set around midnight that day in early June. Another question arose in my mind that if the sunset is around midnight and sunrise around 3am, why is there 24-hour sunlight.

You can find anything on the internet nowadays.  It took less than an hour.

First of all, the daylight that we see after the official sunset time was the twilight,  There are different levels of twilight, the civil twilight when the sun is 0 to 6 degrees below the horizon, the nautical twilight when the sun is 6 to 12 degrees below the horizon and the astronomical twilight when the sun is 12 to 18 degrees below the horizon.  Civil twilight is brighter than nautical twilight which is brighter than the astronomical twilight.  You can still have daylight when the sun has set (gone below the horizon) because the light from the sun is deflected and scattered by particles in the lower atmosphere and there is different degree of brightness depending how far the sun is below the horizon. In Reykjavik in early June, and even later in June, the sun never goes 6 degrees below the horizon and you can see the civil twilight between the official sunset and the official sunrise.

Phases of twilight

Of course, the principal reason that there are different amount of daylight and darkness is because the tilting of the earth. It takes one year for the earth to go around the sun, tilting the same way. When the earth is tilting towards the sun in the summer, the rotation of the earth for the day will still have one end of the axis always seeing the sun. And Reykjavik is close to the north end of the axis. For lower latitudes, the summer daylight hours are longer. At the same time, the other hemisphere, Australia for example, is tilting away so they are in the winter season with less daylight.

Tried to figure out whether the sun was rising or setting in my head. Could not do it.  There is too much geometry to come up with small quantity differences. Internet to the rescue. Found the site www.timeanddate.com which gives the sun and moon location when they are at their zenith (directly overhead).  Not too useful for me because I was not there at those locations and I kind of know where to look from Reykjavik but again, hard to figure out the height of the sun from ground.  Found another site www.suncalc.org which gives me exactly what I need.  Got there by searching 'direction and height of the sun'.  It gave me the direction of the sun, for Reykjavik in early June, a little west of north and the height of the sun, 3.3 deg at 1030pm and 2.6 deg at 1040pm. So the sun was setting when we were there!  Why did we not see that?  My guess is the different scattering of light near the horizon making the sun appeared to be closer to the dark patch underneath but that is not a proof.

wk

wk

Jimmy

Cruise Day 11 - Sea Day

The cruise is coming to an end. There are a lot of things about this MSC cruise that makes it not a perfect experience. Somehow, we don't feel welcome by our fellow passengers. Granted, we don't need it from them but it would have made it much more enjoyable. I should say that there are many wonderful people of all nationalities. And we should not categorically label any nationality as bad people. However, worse than that is some of us feel the same thing about the staff and that is totally unacceptable. As a result, it is likely that none of us will be on a MSC cruise again.

Ultimately, the cruise is not about the ship but about spending time with friends, either making new friends, spending more time with good friends or renewing friendship with those who we don't see often. This trip has all of them. We got to explore places together, eat together, watch shows together and sometimes play together. We don't always have the same itineraries with everyone doing their own things but that is okay. That is how vacations are supposed to be.

Cruise Day 10 - Sea Day

The ship put out weather maps showing the conditions in Kirkwall yesterday when we were supposed to be there. First, we would have to ride through the 5 m waves to get there. By midday after we arrived, it would have been wet and windy. So we are very glad to have exchanged that with some extra time in Reykjavik.

Sea days could be boring but you can change that by winning prizes. Went to a game and it turned out to be beer pong, without the beer. I won a little toy cruise ship after a few rounds. 

Went to the Sudoku game in the afternoon, this one we know ahead of time that it is Sudoku. We have 30 minutes to finish two puzzles but the fastest wins. Thirty minutes, either the puzzles are at the evil level or I have a good chance at it. The game wasn't evil level or close to that and I won a MSC cap. At last, a decent prize. All those time I spent training for this paid off.

Yes, sea days are a little different, but spending them with friends is good.

Water pong

Cruise Day 9 - Reykjavik

Yes. We are in Reykjavik again today. Got the announcement late yesterday that there was a big storm in the North Sea and it is better not to go to Kirkwall, stay put overnight and will go straight to Hamburg in two sea days, setting sail early afternoon today.

This works out great for us. After two straight days of excursions, we haven't had a chance to visit Reykjavik. Now we have the morning to see it. 

We all know Iceland is expensive. Among them is 30 € for a taxi ride of 5 minutes. We were going to take it anyways for the 5 of us except that there was no taxi to be had in the morning. It could be because we were not supposed to be still in port this morning. We decided to walk. I think that is the right decision, not only because we save money, the nice cool morning air by the sea is just perfect for a walk. 

Leisurely along the coast for about an hour, we were there. First visiting the Solfar sculpture I believe is the Viking ship. There was no description anywhere close to the sculpture, however. Light tourist traffic in the morning means that we got the sculpture all to ourselves for a bit for pictures. A rarity.

We visited the church, Hallgrimskirkja, up the hill next. The church is built entirely of concrete with minimal frills. I thought that is how a church should be. I never understood the elaborate decorations in all those churches. To me, they make the churches fancy because they can. It is not their money. Anyhow, I don't contribute to churches so I can't complain. This church is simple but majestic looking on the outside at a prominent hilltop location. It is perfect.

That didn't leave us much time but we did visit the famous Laugavegur Street to get some souvenirs before heading back to the ship. We saw tons of people taking advantage of this bonus time in Reykjavik taking a stroll down the shore. 

For me, I am grateful to be able to stay an extra day. Otherwise I would have to find a way back to Reykjavik some other time. After researching the city for a while, it would have been a pity not to see anything. We did not visit the Perlan or the museums although we did see Videy Island right next to the ship.  I might still come back if I need to go to Europe and can spare a couple of stopover days. Icelandair has been trying to let people know about this stopover option.

Laugavegur 

Hallgrimskirkja

Videy Island

Cruise Day 8 - Reykjavik

Another day in Reykjavik; or I should say, just outside of Reykjavik in among the lava rocks. The Let's Go Volcanic excursion took us to a volcanic cave and a crater in a monster truck.

We were expecting a long and tough hike and came prepared with hiking poles and warm clothes for the cold weather. That was not so good for the volcanic cave. It didn't help that the guide just let us go in with all these stuff that made it so much more difficult in tight spaces; tight spaces that you need to stoop, crawl and even roll to get past. But it was so much fun. It was definitely much more interesting than a hike. We saw all kind of formation inside the cave. The guide was very informative about all the features. Very interesting. 

We moved​ on to our next destination, across fields of lava rocks. Although it was not exactly over the rocks but rather on a somewhat flattened path, it was still quite a monster truck experience with all the rocking and rolling. It took us over the ridge to the high ground for pictures. It was exactly what you would expect, lava rock fields everywhere. The lava flow doesn't choose when everywhere is flat.

We went to another geyser area but they are small compared to Geysir that we saw yesterday. 

Our last stop is a crater created by a volcano eruption. We need to walk up steep slope to get to it and that reminds us of el Camino. It was at some points as steep as those steeper slopes in the Camino but this one is more slippery because of the small pebbles on the slope. The edge of the crater is a high point with spectacular views all the way around.

The excursion ended after we had lobster bisque and bread at a fishing town. It was delicious and well worth the admission since it was included in the ticket. I have not had lobster bisque this good for a long time. 

Without a doubt, this is a tough day but the most enjoyable day of the trip.

This is tight but not the worst by far

Made it!

With our cave guide

Lion Rock?

With our tour guide and driver

Cruise Day 7 - Reykjavik

Today is the de facto destination of the trip. Even we are on a cruise, we keep telling people that we are going to Iceland and Reykjavik is most of Iceland, being the capital and having two thirds of the population of the country.

We joined a shore excursion to the Golden Circle that includes the Geysir, the Gullfoss waterfall and the Thingvellir National Park. Unfortunately, I think we got the worst possible tour guide in the world for this. This 'English Guide' does not the the command of the English language and did no guiding whatsoever. 

We knew we are in trouble when he started talking and we had to guess what he is saying through context. That was confirmed when he let us off for a brief restroom break. A few other tour buses arrived at the same time and we listened to a lively story about the earthquake that happened in that area, given by one of the other guides. Meanwhile, our guide is nowhere to be found other than beside the bus at meeting time.

Enough whining. The geysers are very interesting although not overly big. Eruptions every 8 to 10 minutes are enough to keep people interested. There was absolute chaos at lunch time, another example of non-guiding but like I said, enough whining. 

The waterfall was also quite interesting with several steps and turns but it is a far cry from Niagara Falls that we are so used to. In both places, we got right next to the action, which was nice. 

Iceland is big in area but not so many people so most of the places are just empty. They say Iceland is built on volcanic ash and there is plenty of evidence of that through the trip. The ash covered volcanos and the green grass at lower ground provide quite a contrast and interesting pictures.

Our last stop was the Thingvellir National Park where the American plate meets the Eurasian plate. That is too bad that no one providing explanations other than some read text before we arrived. The visit was also cut short because we wasted time having to find missing tour members during our last stop. 

Overall, I still think we had a good day seeing Iceland.

Gullfoss

Thingvellir National Park

Sunset / sunrise?  at 12am

Cruise Day 6 - Isafjordur

Despite the forecast of no rain, another day with drizzle all day long except, of course, after we were all back on the ship. Isafjordur is a even smaller town than Akureyri yesterday but we saw more things close up because we walked through town. First through the old town following the suggested route shown on the tourist map. After spending some time in the Culture House. We took the main road back to the ship.

The houses in the old town are well maintained so it does not look particularly old. Small houses that all have some character, unlike the townhouses in Akureyri. One of the houses has 1910 on it so I assume that the old town is in the order of 100 years old.  We went to the shore and took picture of the ship. Always amazed at the size of the ship compared to the overall size of the town.

The Culture House is the the end of town which took us 45 minutes of leisurely strolling and taking pictures. It is part library and part photo gallery of life in Iceland. Not sure whether it is more specific for Isafjordur or Iceland in general. 

We took the main road back. With the constant drizzle, there was not any incentive to visit the shops. But surprise, surprise, we visited the local supermarket. We actually found some sea bird eggs, size of a pear, weird looking and expensive; going for about 20 US Dollars for 4 of them.

Good thing that the town is really small and doesn't need a lot of time, otherwise we would have been upset about the inefficient tender operation.

Natural habour

Culture House