DIVE SITES

Silfra crack, Thingvellir Lake, National Park Thingvellir, Iceland
The dive between the continents!

SILFRA is an absolute world class dive site due to two main reasons.
First of all you will be diving in a crack between the American and Eurasian continents.
It's the place where the continental plates meet and drift apart about 2cm per year. Secondly the visibility that you will experience will rarely be surpassed, if ever. 100m+! The reasons for this clarity are twofold: the water is cold ( 2°C - 4°C all year ) since it's the melting water from a glacier about 50km away and has traveled through the lava fields for many years before coming out at the north end of Thingvellir lake through underground wells.


Silfra Cathedral © Peter Rowlands, PR Productions

The Silfra water is as pristine as water can get and you can drink it at anytime during the dives.
The National Park ThingvellirThe official website of Thingvellir National Park
www.thingvellir.is has been declared a WORLD HERITAGE SITE by UNESCO, both for its cultural & historical significance as well as natural & geological uniqueness.


Silfra Platform © Peter Rowlands, PR Productions Depending on your preference Silfra Cathedral and Silfra Lagoon can be dived in one or in two days. A two-day trip with three dives and a trip to GeysirThe official website of the geothermal area with the geysirs "Geysir" and "Strokkur".
www.geysircenter.com and GullfossA description and photos of Icelands most visited waterfall - Gullfoss.
www.geysircenter.com to close the Golden CircleWe offer a Golden Circle day tour including one dive in Silfra. or a one day trip with two dives.
For skilled & experienced divers Silfra offers cavern, cave and deep diving as well. You should at least plan 4 dives if interested in this.

The first dive will start from a platform where some steps bring us into the water. Depending on skill and gusto, the dive with a maximum depth of 18 meters can be done in different variations. A mild current, caused by the underground wells, starts us drifting through the crack. Use this opportunity and look up and see the landscape outside through the surface. In other parts of the dive - see the underwater scenery mirror from the surface as if you were diving through a tunnel.


Surface Mirror © Peter Rowlands, PR Productions Did I hear Fish? No, not really in the crack, ... well, maybe little ones ... sometimes ..., however, there are plenty of fish in the lakeFurther information about the different species of fish in Thingvellir lake.
www.thingvellir.is (brown trout, Arctic charr and the three-spine stickleback) and it is very popular for trout fishing.

As we approach the end of the crack before it feathers out into the lake, we turn around and dive through the cathedral one third of the way back, where we exit.

On the second dive we will pay the Silfra Lagoon a visit.
It is approx. 120m in diameter and shallow (max. 5m) So clear we can see straight through to the other end.


Silfra Lagoon © Charles Hood

You can get a nice picture if a diver comes a bit closer into the center of the lagoon and the others wait in order to get a perspective of size and clarity.
In the second part of this dive we will look a bit around in the crack, where it is possible to do some fantastic swim-throughs under huge rocks that fell into the crack many years ago.