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“In this restless world there is an increasing trend for people to seek something more from their holidays than merely sand, sea, sun, sangria and sex. Adventure seekers crave an adrenaline rush when they take time out from the everyday. They want genuine thrills, the scent of danger and to be able to use the word ‘extreme’ when sharing their experiences afterwards. As the world shrinks, we are looking for a real sense of having travelled, in more ways than one. What better place to go than Iceland – a giant adventure playground for grown-ups. And if you go in midsummer, the sun only sets for an hour or two, and there’s the chance to be active 24/7. As the Icelanders say: “There’s plenty of time to sleep in winter.” Georgette McCready did a trip with AURORA last June and wrote this article for the Bath Chronicle.

Isafjordur lies only 30 nautical miles south of the Arctic Circle and Hornvik is only 5 miles from the circle. AURORA has crossed the Arctic Circle a few times and we have an opportunity to cross it on our trips to the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve.

After long discussions, it was finally time to head West to to the promised land, Greenland. The drift ice from the North had been unusally dense this summer but the latest forecast from the Danish Meterology Institute, looked promising. No ice was supposed to be to the South of Scoresby Sound, the shortest distance across (180nm) from Isafjordur Iceland. We left at 18:00 from Isafjordur against 20knots of headwind doing 4-5 knots. After about four hours, we saw the sun setting in the West with Gannets diving from high in the air. Quite a magnificent sight. We were four in the crew; captain Sigurdur Jonsson (Siggi), Runar Karlsson (that´s me), Smari Karlsson his brother and Asgeir Sigurdsson (Geiri), the brother´s nephew. We changed shifts during the night and did three hours per shift. Me and my brother together and then Siggi and Geiri. The night passed pretty fast and we were still making quite good mileage despite the headwind.