Today DIVE.IS is hosting the Annual Silfra Safety Workshop at Þingvellir National Park, bringing together guides from every tour operator working at Silfra, alongside the park’s rangers and Iceland’s paramedic professionals. The aim is the same every year: to make sure everyone guiding at Silfra, whichever company they work for, works from the same high standard of safety.
The day opens at Hakið with a keynote from the paramedic team, before guides move to the Silfra meeting point for hands-on training. They rotate through stations covering land-based first aid such as CPR, oxygen administration and the use of defibrillators (AEDs), towing tired or struggling snorkelers, emergency exits along the fissure, and the full search, recovery and rescue of an unconscious diver.
Hosting the workshop is a natural extension of the role DIVE.IS has played at Silfra since 1997. As Iceland’s only PADI 5 Star IDC Development Dive Center, and the only operator certified by the Icelandic Maritime Administration to run both diving and snorkelling tours at Silfra, DIVE.IS helped develop many of the country’s safety rules. These include the 3:1 dive-guide and 6:1 snorkel-guide ratios that later became Icelandic law. The workshop is also a chance for professionals who are usually competitors to share knowledge and build the trust that makes cooperation effortless if a real emergency ever happens on site.
And, in true DIVE.IS style, the day rounds off with a friendly BBQ at the park. It is a relaxed close to a focused day, and the part where colleagues from across the industry become friends.
Read more about the Silfra Safety Workshop here.