This was for sure one of the most hectic missions I have been a part of. It was supposed to be a chill day (for me at least), I was playing the role of a driver for two of my friends who are crazy enough to drop waterfalls in plastic banana boats. The drop of went great, I got some sick shots such as this one and said goodbye to my fellow travellers before heading of to the pick up spot. Everything was planned thoroughly. I was in no rush to go to the pick up spot as I was most likely way quicker then them. It turned out that I was indeed quicker despite of arriving later than our planned pick up time. I wasn´t worried about them as these guys are pros and this river was not the most difficult one (or at least I thought). I wasn´t worried at all until darkness came in, it was late October and kayaking in that river after dark was not an option. I quickly found myself a bit lost in the dark with a weak headlight, yelling my friends name who didn´t seem to want to reply to me. Perhaps he wasn´t there? We had a Tetra walkie talkie station so we could stay in touch during the whole trip but oddly enough I hadn´t heard from them in a while. I called them several times on the Tetra and got no reply, it was already around 21:00 o´clock and I was properly worried this time. After calling them for hours on the Tetra and looking around the pick up spot in the darkness, yelling and wondering how absurd this scenario was, I heard a beep. It was from the Tetra. Someone was on the other line trying to reach me, I just assumed it was Marteinn (my amigo) so I started to talk to him but got no reply, only beeps. I realized back then that they had a broken Tetra, they could click in and out but their microphone must have broken during the run. I have never used morse code before and I have no idea how it works so I figured this would be the ideal time to practice that artform. I asked them binary questions to try to get some sense of what was going on, it turned out they were ok but needed help so I called the infamous search and rescue team of the area. They did not quite understand the situation however and kept asking my friend for a verbal reply, I guess they forgot their morse lessons. After about an hour of phone calls back and forth to friends, locals and professional responders who were kind of out in the blue to be honest, they just decided to drop in the helicopter. So my friends were rescued from the spot were they got trapped (and they got properly trapped) and got a free helicopter ride home to Reykjavík. I was a bit jelous as I drove home to Reykjavík, contemplating on what had just happened, it was oddly fun.
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