Snorkelling in Iceland: swim between tectonic plates in Silfra fissure for a truly otherworldly experience
Beneath the clear water’s chilly surface you can kick off from a plate holding up the Rockies and land on another that is supporting the Alps
I walk over to the metal steps, to test the water. It is so clear, I surprise myself by stepping down into it, mistaking the freezing water for air. Howling as if burned, I jerk my leg up and hop up and down on the volcanic rocks surrounding the steps. It is as if I have been dipped in the icy tears of winter herself.
Walking back to the car park, I begin to doubt the wisdom of my plan to go snorkelling in a tectonic rift in Iceland; I mean, the clue is in the name: Ice-land. It isn’t called Tropical Snorkelling-land.
The fissure is a 63-metre-deep rift between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, which are, very slowly, separating. They gap between them grows 2cm wider a year, causing a tension that erupts into earthquakes roughly every decade. The Silfra fissure cracked wide open in 1789, during one such earthquake. It broke into an underwater spring and filled with water – meltwater from Langjökull, Iceland’s second largest glacier, to be precise. Taking up to 100 years to seep through porous volcanic rock, the water that feeds this fissure is pure and clear.
With my shoe drying in the perpetual summer sun, I plunge my water bottle into the fissure and take several swigs. The liquid is crisp and the minerals give it a rugged, healthy flavour.
Despite water temperatures that hover a few degrees above freezing, Silfra, with underwater visibility of about 80 metres, is a popular spot for divers and snorkellers, who are drawn to its ethereal caves and neon algae.
