Well, I have been back from Iceland for a little less than a week now. What a trip! It was chaotic at times, but the chaos always seemed to work out in our favor- for example; free transfer from the hotel, free passes to the AMAZING Blue Lagoon, and free transfer to the airport. But I digress...that is a different story for a different time. I saw the Aurora Borealis. And that, my friends, is what this post is about. The above photo is from that magical night, as all the photos I post will be.
Where to begin? OK, Our trip started on February 28th. We would be searching for the Northern Lights on March 1. On February 25th the sun unleashed the biggest solar flare of the year and one of the strongest in recent years. Thank you solar max! Sunspot AR1990 spat out a massive X4.9 class solar flare which in turn caused a Coronal Mass Ejection blast. X class flares are pretty much the most powerful flares there are, and had this flare been aimed directly at Earth, it could have caused some disturbances among satellites and such. Luckily for Earth, that wasn't the case.
It takes a bit of time for a CME to reach Earth...and it first start to hit on February 27, and there were reports and photos of the Aurora being seen as far down as Scotland and even northern Maine! Needless to say, the Aurora Borealis was spectacular for all who were fortunate to see them. I had been following the space weather for weeks now, so I was well aware of this solar flare, and knew my chances of seeing the Dancing Lights were very good- weather permitting. If you had read my first Iceland post, you knew I chose this time very specifically, right down to the new moon, and just had to hope luck would be on my side. Boy, was it ever.
I had been obsessively checking the weather and cloud cover for March 1st, and it changed daily. Snow/rain, cloudy, partly cloudy, mostly cloudy, clear...literally every option. Imagine my relief when the day of the tour CLEAR skies were forecast. Not only that, but unseasonably warm! I knew I was super fortunate. After an adventure packed day touring the country side of Iceland, and hiking on a glacier (actually pretty treacherous at times! But SO amazing) our tour group had dinner and then set out to hunt for those magical Northern Lights. It was about 9pm. No sooner did the tour guide tell us that our chances would be good, then I saw a hazy, milky green glow out my window. The tour guide saw this at exactly the same time, and excitedly pointed it out to us. A moment later he had pulled into Seljalandsfoss waterfall, and we all spilled out of the tour van to witness this beautiful spectacle of nature.
It was a hazy green strip across the sky. It moved very, very slowly...you almost couldn't tell until you looked away and looked back. I knew that it wasn't that strong, but I was so grateful just to catch even a faint glimpse of this phenomenon. We watched it for at least an hour, then we started heading back towards Reykjavic. The whole 2 hour ride back I could see the lights from my window. Sometimes a little stronger than others, sometimes just a glowing green fog. Then, about 25 minutes outside of Reykjavic, the van started to make a strange noise. It almost sounded like a flat tire. The van had broke down and pulled to the side of the road. It was about midnight by now, and we were told we had to wait for the tour van behind us to take their people home to their respective hotels, and come back to get us. About 10 minutes later, as I stare out the window up at the sky, I see the most amazing vertical, 3 dimensional green beam of light reaching down from the heavens straight towards my face it seemed. I screamed in excitement for my friend to come over to the window- and the sky just exploded in auroral activity. We all piled back out of the tour van and marveled at the display that was happening 360 degrees around us. It moved and danced and swayed, it changed color, if ever so slightly, it took on amazing forms and shapes that had us all cheering and gasping in awe. It was everything I dreamed it would be and more. I could have watched it forever. But, as luck would have it, it started to die down right around the time the tour bus came back to get us. Such a magical, special moment of my life. I will never forget it.
One potential downfall I had, however, was that my manual setting on my camera did not want to cooperate with me. It refused to let me override my ISO setting. Nobody could fix it. I feared I would have no pictures of my Northern Lights to reminisce about. Thankfully, two wonderful ladies in my group offered to email the pics they had taken (the ones posted here) and I am so thankful for the kindness of acquaintances! The following pic is somewhat similar to what I saw coming down out of the sky, reaching to me, photo courtesy of my wonderful tour friend Tina:
Later that week, as I flew home from an adventure of a lifetime, I picked a Joni Mitchell song to listen to: Little Green. That song could not have been more fitting. I couldn't believe it. I had forgot about the lyrics, and I teared up as I listened (not that that's unusual, I tear up to Joni A LOT) but when she got to this part ; "Just a little green, like the nights when the Northern Lights perform" it was perfect. Just Perfect. I couldn't have picked a better song to see me home.
My heart and soul had ached to see the Aurora Borealis, and it is not lost on me that I was extremely, extremely fortunate to witness it. Some little part of my soul was filled that night. Filled with the magic, wonder and awe that only seeing something so mystical as that can fill.
The Northern Lights had been waving to me... and I got to wave back.
