Raufarhofn 66:27.4N 15:56.6W

Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Tue 24 Jun 2008 13:27
Tied up in Raufarhofn after sail of over 24 hours.  This is the most northerly port of mainland Iceland, 6 miles south of the arctic circle, according to my book.  That makes the arctic circle 66:33, or at the north end of the runway on the little island of Grimsey, north of all mainland Iceland.
 
But what is the arctic circle?  These three pictures were taken at 66:22.8'N over the period when sunset should have happened.  The sun was half a diameter above the horizon.  Was refraction making it appear that it had not set? 
 
  
 
12 midnight (Iceland time)                         0030                                             0100
 
I looked up the tables this morning and sure enough at an apparent altitude of 20' the refraction correction is 30' which would push the sun back up again.
 
My gps is also confused as it gives sunrise as 0010 UTC and sunset as 0202 UTC.  This would mean the sun is down all day  Iceland is on UTC (ie GMT) rather than UK summer time..
 
Yesterday was warmer, until we rounded Langaness at 10pm I had only a jacket on outside, rather than full waterproofs.  As we were coming from a run on to a beat and I still have not found out what the tides do round headlands here, a wet beat in broken water was anticipated.  It was not too bumpy and the rest of the night was a long but peaceful beat across to Raufarhofn.  Sleeping 45 mins at a time, as there was nothing around.
 
This morning was cold, so the heater went on.  I remembered that my phone has a thermometer, it was reading 21C in the cabin.  Outside it started at 3 C out at sea and has now got right up to 23 C in the sun in harbour.  The water temperature is showing as 10C.