Our Club trip to Iceland was promoted as the land of fire and ice. It was all that… and so much more. To begin with, there were more waterfalls than I’ve seen anywhere else in my life. This is to be expected with all those glaciers on top of volcanic domes and cones-the melting water has only one place to run-down. And, speaking of birds, there were literally hundreds of thousands of them, some so close we had to remove our long lenses and shoot with wide-angles or macros. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me begin at the beginning.

It was early on a Saturday evening when we dozen Club members, family, and friends met at JFK for our night flight over the Atlantic. Everyone got to the airport on time, the flight went smoothly, and we arrived in Keflavík International early, real early, on Sunday morning. Driving into Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavík, and to our hotel, we were pleasantly surprised to find our rooms waiting for us to check in when we arrived around 10 a.m. We soon started our exploration of the island (by the way, Iceland means island; it has nothing to do with ice). I mentioned the innumerable waterfalls above, there are almost as many lighthouses dotting the coast of Iceland, what with its jagged, rocky coastline. The beaches are also numerous, but not what comes to mind of most New Yorkers. Due to the fact that Iceland is totally volcanic in nature, and most volcanic rock is black in color, so, too, are all the beaches. Not pebbles, but fine, black, volcanic sand. Quite a sight! Black sand, white water, but alas, not very much in the way of blue sky since most of our days in paradise were overcast and rainy.

The rest of the day was spent traveling around this one small southeastern peninsula of Iceland. Our journey brought us to the first of our Icelandic wonders, the Bláa lónid (the Blue Lagoon for those of you not able to speak, or even read, the local lingo). Imagine the steam room or sauna at the Y or some other spa; imagine expanding it some one hundred fold; also imagine filling it with two or three feet of steaming water; and finally imagine placing it among mountains covered with icecaps. That’s almost what the Blue Lagoon looked like. It felt much better to those of us who changed into our swim suits and went in; especially with the nippy, raw, air all around us.

Thus was the first day in Iceland, except, or course, for dinner. Back at the hotel, we dined in luxury, looking back and forth between our watches and the sky outside the picture windows: 9:00 p.m. and it is still bright outside; 10:00 p.m. and it looks like mid-afternoon or early evening back home; 11:00 p.m. and it hasn’t gotten much darker. (Actually, it never got totally dark outside. Yes, the sun did set, but not low enough below the horizon so that its glow didn’t light up the night sky. This was something we would have to get used to. And, it certainly meant that we weren’t going to run out of daylight for our shooting.)

The next day was going to be special. Within a hundred kilometers or so of Reykjavík are three of Iceland’s most impressive and interesting sights. The journey allowing us to visit all three is locally known as the Golden Circle, and we set out early on our trek. The first stop was one of Iceland’s four national parks, Pingvellir, the birthplace of freedom and government in Iceland in the year 930, and also one point at which the land is being ripped apart by tectonic forces deep within the crust of the earth. The next stop was Geysir. This Icelandic word and placename is the root of the English word geyser, or gusher. It is a natural hot spring which erupts every so often due to pressure built up below ground. As we walked into the area from the parking lot, we were surrounded by dozens of bubbling and steaming holes in the ground, water spurting out of many of them every once in a while. But, up ahead, was the grand daddy of them all, spewing water and mist hundreds of feet into the air at intervals of five minutes or so,… it was incredible. Our final stop of the day was Gullfoss (aka Golden Falls), one of Iceland’s, and one of Europe’s, mightiest and most spectacular waterfalls.

Another day in the capital was spent doing city-type stuff. Museums. Shopping. Coffee houses. Shopping. Churches. Shopping. (Get the picture?) For our final night in the big city - the only city, in reality - we went to one of the top restaurants in town. At one time it had been a house with small rooms, quaint and comfortable furnishings, now converted to a restaurant with small rooms, quaint and comfortable furnishings. We were led up stairs to a private dining room. The service was excellent, the food even better. A great way to bid Reykjavík a fond farewell.

It is now Wednesday and our real 3,000 kilometer (1,800 mile) journey was about to begin. For the next ten days we would be driving around the perimeter of Iceland following the island’s main (only?) highway known as the Ring Road. There were so many sights and wonders along the way it would take more pages than we can afford to publish in this Newsletter to tell you about it all. Needless to say, there were many more waterfalls, lighthouses, bird sanctuaries, mountains, beaches, glaciers, icebergs, hiking trails, and other photographic and photogenic subjects along the way. Some of my favorites are:

The puffins, Atlantic puffins, to be exact. Thousands of them. Most of them just sitting there, waiting for you to get closer, daring you to take just one more picture. And after all of that, they would just stare at you with their clown-like colors and sad-looking eyes. Roll after roll went through my camera (and everyone else’s, too). Add to the puffins the gulls, great and arctic skuas, black-legged kittewakes, whooper swans, Arctic terns, and the rest. A true birdwatcher’s delight. (No, we didn’t taste any of the puffin dishes on the menus; but some were tempted.)

The landscape in Iceland is other-worldly. Snow- and ice-capped volcanic mounds in the background, moss- and lichen-covered foregrounds strewn with ejected boulders from the eruptions of centuries past. Sheep and horses wandering aimlessly, grazing, tending to their young, everywhere.

Huge columns of black basaltic rock. Some with water rushing over the top. Others standing alone in the beating surf. Still more seemingly forming faces and animals. Great arches carved out of the rock by eons of wind and water.

A boat ride in a lake, icebergs surrounding us. Small ones, large ones, Titanic-sinking ones. White as snow, blue as the sky, black as the sand.

I could go on and on. Fortunately, however, I won’t. You’ll be able to see for yourself the results of this photographic journey as we bold Icelandic explorers, in the tradition of Eric the Red and Leifur Ericsson, share our images with you in future competitions, portfolio nights, and other exhibitions.