Snorkelling Silfra in Thingvellir National Park, Iceland

Snorkelling Silfra in Thingvellir (Pingvellir) National Park has to be one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done, plus I got to tick off another bucket list item by doing it: be in two places at once.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Silfra is special for two reasons; it’s the only place in the world where you can dive or snorkel directly between the crack between two continents and it has a visibility of 100 meters which is something apparently very rare with water.

We had done a lot of back and forth before booking this excursion on our trip to Iceland because it was so expensive. Looking back I can’t believe we ever doubted going. It truly is an experience of a lifetime.

Because we aren’t divers, we decided to do the half day snorkel tour instead. We also were not staying in Reykjavik so we had to find our way to the spot. Dive.is has a very intuitive website where you will be able to find everything you need to for your trip. Once we printed off the map of how to get to their dive site it was pretty easy to find.

We arrive at 8:30 in the morning to make sure we got there with plenty of time. Upon arrival we parked our car in the lot a little ways down and made the walk back to the site. We were quickly greeted by an energetic staff member who advised us to go to the bathroom (even if we didn’t have to) because it would be a long time before we got the chance again. Definitely listen to this advice.

Once everyone had arrive we were split into groups and helped into our gear. Because it is absolutely freezing in the water (and it wasn’t so warm outside either) I wore long johns, another pair of pants, two pairs of socks and two shirts under my dry suit. For those of you who have never snorkeled or put on a dry suit, I will tell you it’s quite an experience in itself.

The process goes like this

•  You are given your drysuit and told to put it on. Easier said than done. Once you plop both legs in and have brought the suit hip level, there’s a lot of shimmying and shaking involved in getting your arms through.
• Once you’re in, you need to put the head mask (that is not the technical term) on. Not to sound graphic, but pushing your head through the tiny neck hole feels a bit like being born. I can’t say it was my favourite experience.
• After that the guide will come around and tuck your head mask into your suit so that your neck is constricted and you have trouble breathing – this is normal.
• Then come the gloves. If you don’t have a camera or GoPro with you, you can get gloves where four of your fingers are squished together and your thumb is left all alone. This is the ideal option because as any winter enthusiast knows, having your fingers together produces more heat than having them apart.
• Once your hands are in the gloves, they have to be yanked over your drysuit so that no water gets inside
• grab your fins and mask and you’re almost ready to go

The whole process of getting everyone ready takes about 45 minutes because you have to wait for every person to do each item together. The time goes rather quickly though because you spend most of your time laughing at the person beside you, who is also laughing back at your.

The walk to the actual entrance of Silfra is about 100 meters away, which can be quite tricky when you can barely move. The metal platform is small so you have to get in one by one but getting into the water, you make your way down a set of metal steps until you can start swimming.

It’s damn cold.

Honestly I had read a few things here and there about how the water was going to be cold when I got in but holy was I not prepared for that. I also suffer from bad circulation and a previous bout of frostbite so the cold affects my fingers and toes more than the average person.

The whole trip through Silfra talks about half an hour. The views are absolutely spectacular. Pictures really don’t do it justice. The other thing I found incredible was there was zero marine life. I’m not sure if it’s because there are too many people swimming through all the time or perhaps it’s too cold but because there is not marine life, the water was unbelievably still.

I found it really hard to keep my head in the water the whole time though and had to keep flipping on my back to warm up. I found that keeping my hands behind my back or lifting them out of the water kept them a bit warmer.

The guide we had stopped at certain intervals throughout the swim to tell us interesting facts. I wish I could remember all of them but sadly I can’t. I do remember him saying during the first bit of the swim to look closely at the walls and the formation because you could see where they were once joined together.

The end of the swim was in a bay-like area where you could loop around a little if you still had any feeling left in your body. After getting out of the water, all that we were told to take off were our flippers until we got to the campsite.

Upon returning we were greeted with much needed hot chocolate and cookies. We were done at noon and trekked back to our car a little more warm but quiet, reflecting on the extraordinary venture we had just experienced.