Reykjavik and Silfra
It's all been a lie. A lie no one has attempted to correct. We dove "between the continent plates" today, because the fissure that is Silfra is in the three-plus miles between the ridge for the North American plate and the European plate! All those pictures of divers touching the two sides of the fissure - they aren't touching different plates. Just super cool rocks in an amazingly clear dive.
While it was all a lie and it was very, very uncomfortable at points, it was a really cool experience. We got picked up at 9:50 in a van with only five passenger seats, yet enough head room to stand. That is because more of my assumptions were incorrect. I thought we'd be stopping at a dive shop to get fitted for dry suits; instead, a shop's worth of dry suits was in the back half of the van!
We stopped at the visitor's center for Thingvillar (the national park Silfra is in) to finish up paperwork and wait for the the other pair of people diving with us.
The tour van parking was crowded. They seemed to act like it wasn't crazy, but they were definitely jockeying for spots. We were fitted with puffy onesies, made of a slightly slick fabric, then were given the dry suits. They were crushed neoprene, like the ones Alisa and I dove in near Seattle, and they baby-powdered the cuffs around the wrists and neck to facilitate ducking through them. (Alisa's neck seal didn't work on the first one, so she had to drag herself in and out of two different suits!)
It was "balmy" since it was in the mid-forties, but some waiting by the cars for the other divers and a brisk wind chilled our hands and heads. When we got our hoods and gloves for the briefing, I definitely put them on quick.
We got our weight harnesses and BCDs on, then trudged the 100m to the put-in point. We were in about the sixth group back. The only thing I'm thankful for is that there were benches. Other than that, the 40+ minute wait was torturous. The wind was hitting the back of my neck, my already-cold fingers weren't getting a lot more blood flow, and the three pairs of socks wasn't enough under rubber boots sitting in a cold puddle. My legs were trembling with the cold by the time we said goodbye to Rachel and her snorkeling crew and Tommy, Mark, Alisa, and I finally climbed down the metal steps to the platform.
I suck at weight checks - I get frazzled and kick and have too much air in my chest - so when I dropped like a rock during the weight check, I knew I was over-weighted, but the 30 minute dive time and the max depth of 12m/30ft meant that there was plenty of leniency.
Alisa and I got behind Kuba, the first dive guide, and descended into the first crack.
It was a decent depth right at the start, so I descended to ten or fifteen feet and started inflating my BCD. And inflating it. And inflating. It took twenty-plus seconds of air, instead of the usual squirt, to start to have constituent buoyancy.
Which we only needed for maybe fifty feet until the roller coaster started. The bottom rose from the 100 feet up to maybe 10, so I inelegantly scraped along the lava rocks as I cut it a bit close. I did mean that I got a close-up of a lizard-style fish, with two fins fanned out to rest on the rock. I'm not sure if it was that ridge or one of the other half dozen that Alisa saw a coldwater shrimp on.
The slight current continued, and we ascended, descended, hovered, plunged, floated - everyone was doing pretty poorly on buoyancy, but the fact that I couldn't feel my lips on the regulator made me think of breathing first, buoyancy second, and camera third as most of my pictures are blurry messes (including one of Mark and Tommy reaching between the sides of the rift).
They were right that the clarity was amazing. The rocks were crystal clear. Normally that feels like flying to me, but the suit squeeze didn't make anything feel pressure-free.
We "snorkeled" through three feet or less of water before a final dive down and a left turn. The lagoon where we exited was muddier - some interesting rocks right at the beginning and surrounding the lagoon, but I headed straight toward the take-out point and the metal stairs out, which meant I saw the sandy, muddy bottom as my hands lost feeling and my face was raw from cold.
We climbed out, then hiked (with 35 pounds of weight and the 30 pounds of equipment on top of that) the quarter mile back to the van and the table. I was breathing heavy by the end of that - surprisingly not too cold.
While there was an offer of a second dive, the thought of even half of the wait again on the benches to get into the rift (and the fact that at least Rachel would be waiting in the car the whole time), warned us off. Hot chocolate, cookies, and peeling off all their layers to add back our outerwear.
Alisa chatted with the Singaporeans that were the last pair on our dive, while the gal that Rachel had found snorkeling (with a boyfriend that teaches scuba in Alexandria - sound familiar?) hung out for a bit too. Ultimately, it was the five of us back in the van, and we headed home. We asked about grocery stores (Kronan's are better, but also more expensive, than Bonus's), alcohol (Vinbudir is their state-controlled beverage store), and their backgrounds (Poland and Sweden).
We arrived back, had Kamila come down with the keys, then started baking some pizza. We were home by 4, so it was nap time (or cleaning time) then Mark, Tommy, and I walked to pick up the cars.
We had ordered two older model 4x4s. One is a 2005 Ford Explorer. The other is European car that I drove with Tommy. The idle on the Eurocar was very rough, and there were a couple clunks as we made our way back, but it was still running when we made it back to the friend's house. We locked up then headed to the Snaefellsnes peninsula! With an initial detour at a grocery store.
We grabbed assorted breakfast, lunch, and dinner items, then I hopped back in with Tommy and Kamila, and we bumped along in the car, getting through a tunnel before finding a gas station - and who was already there but the other car! We caravanned to our rented house.
The hot tub out back mystified all of us - it felt ok but not hot, and we could not find controls for it. We hopped in anyway, and it had hot water rising from the plug in the bottom, so it was satisfactory while we watched the stars. No Northern lights, but good company as we made hot chocolate and chatted until 2.
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