Another morning spent at Jökulsárlón. You’d think that it gets boring by now, but the conditions were different again (more wind, less rain) and the beach in particular was different – the wind had driven in small icebergs so there was much more ice in the water than there had been on the previous mornings. I concentrated once again in catching the force of the waves and the wind and missed out on the closeups that the others were taking but stupid me had not foreseen the possibility that it would be necessary to stand in the water so I didn’t have wellingtons. I only had Goretex hiking boots and even Goretex doesn’t help if the water gets high enough. I saw some people (there were more people on the beach this morning) with thigh high waders and an occasional rogue wave caught even them.
When it started getting brighter, we finally drove to the glacier lagoon of Jökulsárlón to see where these ice chunks come from. Vatnajökull calves icebergs into the lagoon where they slowly drift towards the outlet to the sea and break up during the journey. When the pieces are small enough, they finally pass thru the channel and these pieces are then scattered on the beach that we’ve been shooting in the mornings.
I had another moment of being overwhelmed and I didn’t really know where to start. Luckily we spotted some seals swimming around the icebergs so I took out the Olympus with the telephoto zoom and calmed myself down while trying to catch a seal head among the ice.
I didn’t have any better ideas so I did some long exposures here. Not such a good idea – I found out afterwards that even though the big icebergs looked like they are stationary, they do actually move enough to create motion blur in a 10 sec exposure. This was just about the only frame where the blur isn’t instantly visible!
After three nights in Hali, it was time to move on so we packed up after breakfast and drove west. The first stop on the way was Svinafell, which is another glacier tongue of Vatnajökull. We almost got some sunlight here… but just almost. The second stop was at Eldhraun again which was nice, because I didn’t get anything done in the rain yesterday. This time I overcame my reluctance to break the moss so I ventured in the lava field to find some moss without footprints, and when I saw the small mountain birch I knew I had found my spot.
And then the famous weather changed again… I saw in the west that there was a wall of rain approaching but it turned out to be hail instead. But just before it got too miserable, the sun broke out and a beautiful rainbow appeared ahead! I wish I had been at a better spot (I had moved on from the birch by then) so I had to take what I got, I couldn’t risk looking for another place because moving around the mossy rocks is very slow going when you have to watch out for every step.
Then we went a little bit offroad. The road was there… but just barely. I’ve never forded in a car so that was a bit exciting!
