Silfra Snorkeling — sarah symbalisty

Jun 27

Jun 27 Silfra Snorkeling

It’s not possible to snorkel or scuba dive Silfra without a tour company and it is also not cheap. After scouring the tour sites, I ended up booking the cheapest one I found that included round trip transportation and it was almost $500 for me and Brandon. We chose one with round trip transportation so that our families would still be able to get around with both cars. You could save a little bit of money by driving yourself. We had a great time and while it’s not something I would pay for on every trip to Iceland it is truly a once in a lifetime experience as you get to snorkel between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates.

The Silfra frissure, located in Thingvellir National Park, is one of the biggest rifts in the tectonic plates and opened after an earthquake in 1789 and flooded with glacial water. The water temperature is only 2-4 degrees Celsius year round (35-39F), never freezes and is the freshest in the world. You can actually take a drink while snorkeling if you want! The water comes from the nearby Langjökull glacier and is filtered through an underground lava field. The lava field acts as a natural filter and the whole process can take anywhere from 30 to 100 years. The visibility is around 60-85 meters in the summer, but can reach 80-100 meters in the winter months making the Silfra one of the longest underwater visibility dive sites in the world!

When snorkeling here, you’ll want to wear multiple warm thermal layers. A thin thermal top, fleece leggings and wool socks are what I showed up in. I was then dressed in a fleece undersuit and a neoprene drysuit, with a neoprene hood and gloves. Once you put on a mask and snorkel, the only part of your body that touches the water is your lips. Once your lips go numb you won’t even notice the cold!

Someone diving behind Sarah swimming in Silfra

One tip they mentioned to keep warm was to keep your hands on your back instead of using them to swim. Water will seep into your gloves or suit if there is even a tiny opening. My gloves did get water in them but I didn’t think it was too bad. I imagine during the winter I would have felt differently. One girl in our group must’ve had a large hole somewhere because her thigh was soaked when she took her dry suit off!

The current helps you float along, but if you have issues, you have can also roll over and float on your back. It was mentioned several times that we would be swimming in a current and since the dry suit keeps you afloat, you don’t really notice this until you have to make the sharp turn into the Silfra Lagoon. As we were turning and swimming this way, there was a lot of bright green algae on the rocks, or “troll hair.” The whole snorkeling experience was about 45-50 minutes and I thought it went by rather quickly.

Fun fact: Brandon’s first duty station was Fairbanks, Alaska. One summer we took Brandon’s parents on a helicopter glacier tour. We got to land on a glacier and walk around. I remember being in awe that we could stand in thousands of years old glacial water and, here we are, 10 years later swimming in glacial waters!

About to walk into the water to snorkel Silfra fissure at Thingvellir National Park, June 2023

If you’re not interested in snorkeling or scuba diving here, you can still walk around and watch the divers go into the water and come out. Thingvellir is a great place to see the divide of the Tectonic Plates but if you have the time, near Keflavik Airport is a “bridge between continents” and it’s a great visual experience!