Lucky didn't bring us luck

If you go to Rome, you should see the Colosseum, try visiting Manhattan and not seeing the Empire State Building, so if you go to Iceland in November, of course you should see the Northern Lights. Not so simple. It's a natural phenomenon that may or may not be occurring where you are, and even if it is happening you might not be able to see it for all sorts of other reasons out of your control, like other light sources or the weather in general.

We were booked on a trip out into the bay to maybe see the lights on the night that we'd arrived, but it was not only too stormy to see anything, it was too stormy to take a boat out safely. On the second night, the tour company told us we could have another go, so at about 10pm we walked down to the harbour and searched in the dark for the yacht that would take us out.

Our guide was called "Lucky" - she had the kind of English accent that could have been from anywhere. I assumed she was just English, but who knows - so many people spoke English well there. Perhaps this was a good omen. Perhaps that's why she tells people her name's "Lucky".

Once on board and briefed on the physical risks and safety equipment, Lucky took us through the caveats, the many reasons why we might not see anything. Fortunately there was a bar serving warm drinks and snacks as well as booze. I find that I have very little to say about the trip apart for cruel observations about my fellow passengers which I'm not going to repeat here. If we had seen anything in the sky, it would have helped, but basically we sailed out until we could hardly see any lights any more, waited for our eyes to adjust to the darkness, waited, waited, waited, listened to the waves crashing on the shore in the distance and then Lucky declared that the window in which it might have been possible to see anything had passed and we turned back. At least it was just cold and didn't rain.

The spot of light relief was the speculation about the previous ownership and working life of the boat we were on, the Amelia Rose. Everything about the decor screamed "80's drug dealer" or maybe Wall Street trader - it seems it was used in the filming of a straight to DVD apocalyptic movie"In the blink of an eye" but at midnight, getting off a boat and having to walk back up the hill to the hotel, without having seen anything but black sky, black mountains and black water, I would take any entertainment I could get.