Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

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The wind hits me as I walk out of my hostel and into darkness.  I head towards my rental car.  The stirring wheel is like an ice cube even through my gloves. I start my rental car up and head out of Reykjavik.  I have about an hour’s drive towards Þingvellir National Park.  The sky is just beginning to show signs of light despite it almost being 9:30 am.  As I approach, the park I drive around towards rift valley that makes up most of Þingvellir.  Þingvellir one of the few places where it is possible to stand on the North American tectonic plate as well as the Eurasian tectonic plate. The rift valley in the park is part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between the two tectonic plates.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

My second visit to Þingvellir National Park marked one of my last adventure on my Icelandic winter road trip. I had started my trip with a visit to Þingvellir but this visit would be different than my first visit. This time I didn’t want to just stand between the continents.  I was going to take advantage of a unique feature of Þingvellir.  On the rim of Þingvallavatn Lake is a large crack rift floor. It is filled with glacier water that has filtered through the porous lava rock.  This crack is called Silfra and it is one of the few places in the world one can swim between too continents.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

I arrive at the Silfra parking lot just as the sun rises above the horizon.  I step out of my warm car and am reminded that it is winter. My guide hasn’t arrived yet, so I get back in my warm car and began questioning about my scuba skills and whether are dive computers expensive? And How much will it take to get a fully-equipped site?  Which is when it stuck me that In a few short minutes, I will be SCUBA diving in Silfra, the space between two continents. I shiver from the cold and take a second tom think about what the next hour and half will be like.  Its winter.  I am a few degrees from the Arctic circle and am about to go SCUBA diving in water that is just above freezing.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

My guides van pulls up and he gets out to greet me and several others who have just arrived.  We gather around the back of his van while he takes stock of our diving skill level for assigning of dive groups.  Due to the water temperature hypothermia occurs in about 15 to 30 minutes depending on body size.  The temperature require a dry suit to dive.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

Of the eight people in the dive group, only one had any dry suit diving experience. I had never done any dry suit diving or had any training on it.  The guide when over the basics on dry suits.  Despite the name dry suits aren’t actually dry.  They are mostly dry but the openings around the hands, feet and neck provides an entry point from water.  One need to minimize movements to prevent water from entering.

I am handed my dry suit, diving gloves, diving boots, and diving hood. The gloves, boots, and hood are made of 11mm neoprene.  I can already feel the cold sneaking underneath my jacket.  I prepare for the dive.  The first thing is to strip down to my undershirt, legging, and my wool socks.   I remove my jacket and winter pants.  The cold hits like a ton of bricks.  I start fight with the dry suit to get into it.  It is a borrowed unit so it wouldn’t fit perfectly anyway.  It was a tight fit.  It was a struggle to get into.  I had to work my body into the suit through the zipper across the shoulders of the suit.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

Each leg is a huge effort.  I am trying to get my foot out of the hold while still keeping my legging in position.  With my feet out of the suit, I work the suit up and get my arms in position.  Next I work my feet into the boots and tuck the tops of the boot into the dry suit. The boots are still damp from the last time they we used.  I can’t help but wonder if my feet are getting frost bite.

I pull on the hood and tuck it in.  The guide helps me zip up the shoulders and I am in the dry suit.  I pull my gloves on.  I am one of the first ones ready.  I stand there waiting for everyone else feeling like a sardine.  Once everyone is ready, we pull on out BC, weights, and tanks and start the 200 ft walk to the entrance to Silfra.  I descend the steps and enter the water.  The cold I felt before had nothing on what I was feeling now.  The guide helps me put on my fins and start my descent into the water.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

I turn my head to the right to examine to see the rocks that make up the Silfra.  A nice trickle of 1 degree C water ran down my back.  Nope, not moving my head like that again.  The viability is as better than promised.  Silfra is about 63 meters deep and from the depth of 10 meters I can see ever rock on the bottom.  We slowly work our way through the Silfra hall. The crystal clear water provides amazing view of the rocks that from both tectonic plates.  The hall isn’t long and is just a pre-dinner treat.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

After a few minutes if swimming, we turn a corner and the hall opens into the famous Silfra cathedral.  This 100 meter long fissure is clear from beginning to end.  Visibility allows me to see all the details of the fissure.  I swim in amazement of the clarity of the water.  On my right is North American tectonic plate.  On my left is the Eurasia tectonic plate.  Silfra expands by about 2 cm each year.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

Swimming the cathedral takes about 20 minutes.  While, I can’t stop enjoying the view but a small part of my brain is worried that I can’t really feet my feet.  Again, I am still conserved about the frost bite on them.  My fingers have started going numb.  I try flexing them in hopes of restoring blood flow. All that did was push cold water from gloves into the dry suit.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

The Silfra cathedral opens into the Silfra lagoon.  The lagoon has a sandy bottom intermixed with some rocks. Despite the water temperate, the rocks have algae growth on them.  We spend the rest of the dive exploring the rocks in the lagoon.  At the 50 minute mark, I can’t decide if I want to get out and get warm or stay longer and enjoy the views in the lagoon.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

I take my fins off and get out of the water.  I want to get back in the water.  The wind is blowing and eats right through the dry suit.  We quickly walk the 400 feet back to the cars and start quickly stripping out of the dry suits.  I am cold and numb so removing the dry suit was even more difficult to get out of them in.  It took two days and a trip to the Blue Lagoon to warm my bones up and yet, I would go diving in Silfra in winter again.

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

Have you been SCUBA diving in Silfra? If not, would you want to?

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Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra

18 thoughts on “Freezing my feet off while SCUBA diving in Silfra”

  1. Hi Jennifer, thanks for the great travel tips, including SCUBA diving in Silfra, the reviews, and the hints. Pictures are really great also.

    It certainly helps when you can read a blog such as yours and be guided by it. Many adventures to be had by all.

  2. What an incredible experience – this is my number ONE activity that I MUST achieve in my life! It would be a dream. It’s just so far to travel from the South Pacific! What camera did you use underwater? I haven’t been dry suit diving before. But I cannot wait to experience this for myself one day.

  3. I haven’t been scuba diving in Silfra, I have only dived at the Great Barrier Reef where the water is warm, no feet freezing for me. I would totes dive there tho, although that nice trickle of 1 degree C water running down your back makes me think I wouldn’t enjoy this experience so much. Not a huge fan of being cold.

  4. I am going to Iceland in two weeks and though I really want to, I don’t think I have the guts to do this in winter. But it sounds like one hell of an experience!

  5. I am still waiting for my first time to try scuba diving! Your pictures really enourage me not to have fear:) Thanks for sharing, it must have been amazing experience.

  6. Looks absolutely beautiful! I really only think of trying scuba diving in warm and tropical places. Looks like I should start exploring others as well. Thanks for sharing.

  7. What an amazing experience. I get asthma and this kind of scuba diving is not something I can do. But, it DOES look wonderful – and something I can imagine you will never ever forget

  8. I’ve wondered about diving the rift. Great to hear such details about the experience. I do open water diving but haven’t had the drysuit experience. It’s one of those once in a lifetime experiences!

  9. Seriously do not think I could handle that kind of cold, but your pictures are amazing, and I am very impressed you did it!

  10. Full credit to you. I just cannot imagine doing this. Scuba diving is not for me and doing it so far north in winter – no thank you. But the photos are beautiful and I am happy for you to have had this experience.

  11. I can definitely imagine it’s cold down there! But what a cool experience. As if it’s not awesome enough to be scuba diving, you get to do it between two continental plates!

  12. Ah! I’ve been wanting to go to Iceland, and you helped satisfy my craving a little with this article since your vivid writing and photos made me feel like I was actually diving right there alongside you!

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