Monday, 13-May-2024
When my friend Bri and I were first talking about meeting up in Iceland, she shared a tour that she’d found a while back. A tour that would have us donning the thickest of wetsuits, on top of the warmest of fleece bodysuits, and then diving into a fissure between the North American and European tectonic plates.
I mean… how could I say no?
I couldn’t, obviously. So I said yes, booked the tours, and locked in the details!
We drove from where we’d based ourselves in Kirkjubæjarklaustur, and headed for Þingvellir park. It was a 3-hour drive, and we had a tour to catch, so we headed out early… which was a bit of a mix-up for me, since I’ve been pretty religious about avoiding setting alarms on this trip. But, for the sake of adventure, I made the sacrifice and we got on the road early, after I’d sipped some coffee and noshed on one of the croissants that I’d squirreled away in the van.
The drive was simple, nothing to report there. We stopped on the way for some lunch, but otherwise it was pure bliss, just relaxing and watching the beautiful landscape roll by.
Þingvellir itself was beautiful, and it was the work of just a minute or two to walk from the parking lot to the meetup for the dive. We checked in, were given a whole safety lesson, were given a whole lesson on donning our protective layers, and then spent almost 30min donning said protective layers.
Then, we waddled.
I mean, we walked. We tried to walk. We awkwardly walked to the dive site. One final safety briefing later, I was the first one in the water! Because I volunteered to be the safety dummy. I was excited, and our dive master was cute, okay? What do you want from me?
After I’d shown everyone how easy it was to swim, and get dragged around by the guide in an emergency, and how impossible it was to sink in our intimidatingly puffy outfits, we all dove in and started our tour!
From the surface, Silfra Fissure doesn’t look like much, other than a thin stream of water. Maybe a bit darker than the water around it, which is weird since it’s super clear – Silfra is supposedly some of the clearest water in the world, with visibility up to 300ft.
From below the surface, it’s a completely different story.
Silfra is a canyon. A staggeringly beautiful blue, getting darker the deeper it goes. We used nearly every foot of visibility, looking down into the yawning chasm, and more than a few Viking legends about sea monsters sprang to mind as I saw caves and deeper passageways leading out from the main fissure.
We swam, I adored the views, and I explored as best I could. I wished that I could put on a SCUBA kit and go deeper, though I easily contented myself with frog-kicking my way around the zone we were cleared to explore. I touched both walls, and I reignited my love for underwater exploration.
40min later, it was over. We clambered out of the water, stomped and waddled and walked our way back to the dive area, and shed out layers. We sipped cocoa, relaxed, and soon enough we were on our way.
I didn’t get any pictures, unfortunately, as there was no way I’d be risking my camera to the watery depths and intense pressure of getting dropped by cold-numbed hands. Thankfully, our guiding service provided more than just a capable guide and lovely wetsuits… Check out the images below, taken by professional underwater photographers!
Now, there’s a few interesting things that I’d like to fill you in on, dear reader:
- This one is sad – Þingvellir does touch both Tectonic Plates… but technically the Silfra Fissure is a crack in the new land between the two plates. It’s complicated, and I don’t quite get it myself, but our guide explained it well. I technically wasn’t actually touching both plates at once. Booo…
- This one is cool – SCUBA diving in Silfra is like… crazy complicated and dangerous. I looked into booking a SCUBA tour later on in my trip, and it needs so many certifications. Mainly due to the depth and clarity of water, I think, which mean that you could easily pass your depth limit unintentionally?
- Shout out to Arctic Adventures for doing the tour! Here’s a link: https://adventures.com/iceland/tours/activities/snorkeling/snorkeling-in-silfra/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwr7ayBhAPEiwA6EIGxK4bJhybr4IG-iTMBMkdPYv1yU4ADUvsr4la-Frh_Co3_At4Rwfl9RoCph4QAvD_BwE