Longest Day of the Year

Yesterday June 21 marked the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere - Summer Solstice. We were told the sun would just set and immediately rise again. But in checking the times for sunset and sunrise for our area of Iceland we discovered we would have to wait about 3 hours from sunset to sunrise. The event we were told of happens on the northern side of the island where you look north over the ocean and can see the sun set and then rise again. We are on the south side the the island and we have mountains to the north of us so the sun disappears before the actual sunset time. The pictures were taken in the following order: Looking south at 10:23 PM note the rainbow; southeast at 11:18 PM; southwest at 12:11 AM and southeast at 12:12 AM.

One thing to be said for the long days - we don't use much electricity. Even in the middle of the night we don't need to turn the lights on unless the blinds are closed and because of our location we seldom close them except in the bedroom and then it is still light enough not to have to use the lights unless you want to read.