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Only a few weeks ago we were praying for the snow to arrive in Isafjordur. And after an unusually mild fall winter has come with full force. Last few days have seen a constant chain of low pressures coming over from Newfoundland and south of Greenland. These have brought a tongue of very cold air from Greenland and we have seen temperatures down to -10 degrees celcius along the coast and even lower temperatures in the mountains.

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston is now way past he Canary Island in his Open 60 racing sailboat “SAGA Insurance” on his way to Fremantle Australia in the VELUX 5 OCEANS single handed race. By now he should be entering the doldrums. But others were heading south as well…. A bold, little bird called Ringed Plover (Charadrius Hiaticula), tagged close to Isafjordur, was spotted in Lanzarote on the Canary Islands last month.

We haven´t had much snow in the West Fjords yet this fall. Only a minor sprinkle on the mountain tops. The forecase is for un-seasonably warm weather and rain. Last year around this time the two AURORA crew almost started an avalance in the mountain of Seljalandsdalur when they went Telemark skiing in a small snow storm.

Isafjordur is much closer than you think…. Now there are four airlines with scheduled flights into Iceland. These are Icelandair, Iceland Express, SAS and British Airways. As far as we can see there are direct flights to Iceland from the following 28 cities during the summer months: Alicante, Amsterdam, Baltimore, Barcelona, Basel, Bergen, Berlin, Boston, Copenhagen, Eindhoven, Frankfurt, Friedrichshafen, Glasgow, Göteborg, Halifax, Helsinki, London, Madrid, Manchester, Milan, Minneapolis/St. Paul, München, New York, Orlando, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm, Zürich.

Clipper Venture’s VELUX 5 OCEANS solo round the world yacht race started last Sunday from Bilbao, Spain. One of the seven yachtsmen competing is former owner of AURORA, the legendary Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. Sir Robin was the first man to ever sail single-handed, non-stop around the world, in 1969 when he won The Sunday Times Golden Globe race on board his yacht ‘Suhaili’. Back then, his record-breaking circumnavigation took a monumental 312 days, during which Sir Robin lived off rain water caught in a bucket. This time, at the age of 67 he hopes to take around 200 days off his 1969 record in his state of the art Open 60 ‘Saga Insurance’.

Looking to fine-tune your cross-country skiing for the season? The Fossavatn training camp is scheduled for November 23-26, in Isafjordur, Iceland. The action-packed weekend starts on Thursday night (Nov 23th) with some easy skiing in our light-trail. On Friday and Saturday there will be two workouts each day, plus presentations and “evening chat”. The camp then ends with a Sunday morning workout before it is time to head back home. The training camp, including groomed trails and instructions by Norwegian coach Ashild Sporsheim, is FREE OF CHARGE courtesy of Fossavatn Ski Marathon.

We have made an effort to tie our trip schedules to local events in the Isafjordur area. These can be local festivals, sports events etc. We try to encourage our guests to extend their stay in Iceland and participate in other activities before or after our trips. Our good friends at WEST TOURS (Vesturferðir) are more than happy to assist you with travel or hotel bookings all over Iceland. Here is a list of some of the local events……

As we mentioned earlier we had a sprinkle of snow in the mountains in end of August. This didn’t last long though and we have had unusually mild September. But this morning we had a bit of snow down to sea level. The kids in town were quick to take the oportunity to play in the snow….

“Clipper is happy to report that Siggi now owns “Antiope Clipper” and is going to operate from Isafjordur, on the north west coast of Iceland, just a couple of days from Greenland. “Antiope” was the yacht that Sir Robin took to Greenland in 1998 and 2005. Apart from Sir Robin and Sir Chris booking the latter part of July and early August in 2008, Siggi is available for almost any adventure in this magical part of the world, where boats provide the only real access off the beaten track.”

Last few nights have been great for watching the northern lights dancing high up in the sky above Isafjordur. The weather in Iceland has been great and stable and not a cloud in the sky for five days. Aurora (short for polar aurora is a glow in the sky, seen often in a ring-shaped region around the magnetic poles (“auroral zone”) and occasionally further equatorward.