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Published: August 17th 2011
Naturally with my lack of sleep over the last week my wake up call from Rachel came 15 minutes earlier because
Dive.is was picking us up from the hotel between 8-8:30 so we had to be ready. Approximately 8:15 we were picked up by Kevin (from Ireland) and Stephen (from Germany). When they picked us up, a girl by the name of Mikala (also from Germany) was already in the van. We then picked up two more guys who were going to be diving. The one kid Edgar had 16 dives already under his belt, impressive!
The ride to Þingvellir National Park was about 45 minutes-1 hour. I'm not quite sure because I was falling asleep, yet again. I forgot to mention the kid Stephen was driving the van and I'm not joking when I tell you he couldn't have been older than 15; that was the scariest part about being in this foreign country. Once we arrived in the park we stopped at the little coffee shop and paid, peed and ate if we wanted to grab something. After this point there was no peeing unless you went in the trees because peeing in a DRY suit is a
no go (it would be quite gross peeing in your own clothes and then staying in those close for the next 6 hours).
From that point we met up with the rest of our group, also with the Dive.is company. In total there was about 15 of us, 5 of which were doing snorkeling. The group was Rachel and I in addition to Mikala, Scott and Rachel (married couple from NY). After we met the other people in our group and our instructors we walked over to the beginning of the Silfra dive where we were briefed on what to expect as far as how a dry suit works, how to navigate the tight spaces and how cold/wet you will actually get. Keep in mind the water is JUST above freezing. Maybe 38 degrees F.
After the briefing it was time to get the dry suits on! In our group of five, I'd say I was the most experienced one with wearing a wet suit as it became pretty obvious no one else really knew how to get it on. Rachel needed help putting on her under coat, then the actual dry suit (which is a one piece
with boots built in). She couldn't get the dry suit over her head. Oh gosh, then came the gloves and the hood. It was actually funny. We were all snapping photos of each other getting ready. Honestly, I got the thing on in about 2 minutes and was ready to go. Also I'm not quite sure what Rachel and others expected as far as the coldness of their hands but I knew the gloves are supposed to get wet and then your body heat will heat up the water and warm the gloves. In other words you hands basically freeze to death within 45 minutes but you won't realize it until 35 minutes in. It's basically a catch 22, your hands will get slightly wet.
Once the dry suits were on we walked over to the entrance of Silfra carrying our masks and our fins. Fins weren't even a necessity really because their is a current in Silfra. Once we got there is when we put the masks and fins on. It's so odd to be snorkeling in a dry suit with my regular clothes on underneath. I was literally wearing pants and a t-shirt! Of course none of
the girls wanted to be first in the water so Erica (our instructor from Norway) volunteered me and I had no problems walking in there. I'd be lying if I said you don't get a slight chill, especially in the hands. Also your mouth is exposed so that gets pretty chilly but it's bearable and you don't realize it after the initial shock. WELL worth the experience! Oh, also it was strongly encouraged that we drink the Silfra water as it's naturally purified from the glacier. I drank the water on four separate occasions. It was literally ice cold and had an amazing taste; it was better than Fiji water (Chris I know you are a Fiji fan, this is 30X better)!
The pictures speak for themselves how cool this was. I unfortunately didn't have a digital camera so all the photos are Rachel's. I did however take my waterproof black and white camera in the water so Nicole can develop those photos for me! Haha.
Fun Fact: One second I was snorkeling in North America, the next in Europe!
Snorkeling took 30-35 minutes I would guess and you go through 7 sections of Silfra, each one
more crystal clear. Once we were done we walked back to the van where they served us hot chocolate and mini chocolate chip cookies. The divers got out just after we did and they sat out for about 45 minutes and then had another dive to go so that gave Rachel and I time to walk around the park. We had maybe an hour and a half to just chill which would have been more but it took the ladies at least 15 minutes to get their dry suits off (meanwhile I had mine off again in record time). It's the hair ladies! The hair gets wet and makes it nearly impossible to get the dry suit back over your head. I guess they didn't get the memo about shaving your head, at least I did.
Fun Fact II: The original Icelandic Parliament building was here in 930.
We took a nice hour long stroll around checking out the "money crack" where everyone throws money in between two continents. After the divers we done we drove back to the coffee shop for a bathroom stop and headed home. Naturally I fell asleep again and Rachel told me hours later everyone on the van was laughing at me for passing out, oh well. Later that night we went to Cafe Paris for dinner where I got a chicken sandwich and a cookies n' cream protein milkshake while Rachel got chicken with pasta and carrot cake, mmm. After dinner we walked around and it was 9 PM and of course still light out. It really is unbelievable how that works. During our walk I finished up souvenir shopping for my Mom, Dad, Nicole, Grandma/Grandpa and Uncle Allen. So now I'm broke and may not be able to afford a flight back to America. Joking!
Tomorrow is our last day but it will be both of our first times snowmobiling which is pretty exciting!
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Dad
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great photos
The snorkeling sounds very cool. The photos are great. Were you really in between two continents? It sounds like a very fun day that you all enjoyed. Enjoy snowmobiling today!! Love You