Iceland underwater

Silfra is located in Þingvellir (Thingvellir), the National Park where the Althing - an open-air assembly, which represented the whole of Iceland - was established in year 930 and continued to meet until 1798. The National Park is located above latitude 64 north and is the only place in Iceland that is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. To dive Silfra you have to be up for diving in extreme conditions: strong current, very cold water and on any given day there are around 300 small earthquakes in the earth of the National Park Thingvellir. Silfra has been rated as one of the top three cold water dive sites in the world by Diver Magazine.

Silfra is actually the ravine between the Eurasian continental plate and the American continental plate, which are drifting apart about 2cm per year; the width of the fissure varies from 5 to 6 meters to less than 1 meter. Below, in the photo on the right, I’m touching both tectonic plates at the same time. To my left, the Eurasian plate stretches across the North Sea, Europe and Russia to the Sea of Japan to my right, the North American plate stretches across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and North America to the San Andreas Fault. This really is a special place to dive!

I didn’t see much life but the topography looked like belonging to another planet, with a visibility of at least 100 meters; as the ice melts, it trickles through mile after mile of porous volcanic rock to emerge some 50 years later as pure, clear mineral water. Needless to say, these were the coldest dives ever for me at 2°C and 3°C. The water in Silfra has a constant temperature of 1°C to 4°C year around because it is coming up from underneath the lava field after traveling for years underground from nearby glaciers and going as deep as 6 km into the ground. The water is about 2/3 glacier water and 1/3 rain water.