Iceland: Day 11 - Arctic circle crossing on Grimsey
July 5, 2004
Today was the day when we finally would cross the arctic circle. To do this we took the ferry from Dalvík to the island of Grímsey. The northernmost inhabited part of Iceland, Grímsey has an area of 5,3 km² and is situated 41 km north of the main island. The Arctic Circle crosses it and the sun does not set there at summer solstice. A short hike on the island would take us across the magic line.
We had a picnic lunch on a grassy cliff overlooking the arctic ocean with more puffins to amuse us. In particular we enjoyed watching one puffin continuously circle out to sea and come back, trying to decide whether to chance his clumsy landing with us two humans sitting so close to his burrow.
Thank you to the 'aunt colony' (Rubby's aunts in Cape Breton) for sponsoring this amazing adventure.
A word about the 'sponsorships' for those who are a bit confused about what this means... At our wedding, instead of a traditional gift registry, we set up a website which listed things we would need for our honeymoon trip to Iceland, or activities that we wanted to do once we got there and their approximate costs. People could then sign up to 'sponsor' our honeymoon with monetary gifts that were intended for a specific item or activity. Well this ended up making a huge difference to our honeymoon in the sense that we were able to truly make it a once in a lifetime event. Iceland is a very expensive place to visit and along the way we constantly met people who had decided not to do something because it would have cost too much. On the ferry ride, talked to one couple who had made the decision not to go see Latrabjarg cliffs in order to be able to afford the arctic circle trip instead. Explained our sponsored arctic crossing, I think the couple would have liked to adopt the aunt colony themselves!
the arctic certificate
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