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Diving in Silfra Fissure has been repeatedly rated as one of the best diving tours in the world and you don’t want to miss it!
Silfra is located in Thingvellir National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site and an iconic landmark of the famous Golden Circle, making it a must-stop for every visitor in Iceland. The rift is filled with some of the clearest water in the world, allowing divers to enjoy exceptional underwater visibility. If you’re looking for the dive of your life, you’ve just found it!
Please check our Diving Handbook for more information about the tour.
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The Silfra Fissure is one of Icelandic nature’s most phenomenal creations. It’s the only place in the world where you can dive and snorkel between two tectonic plates. Located between the North American and Eurasian continental plates, the crack slowly expands every year, as the plates shift farther away from each other.
One of the reasons Silfra is so popular among divers is its great underwater visibility. The rift is filled with crystal clear meltwater from Langjökull, the second-largest glacier in Europe. The water travels slowly through fields of porous lava rocks that filter the water. It’s crisp and fresh, and totally safe to drink! Diving in such pure water creates an exceptional diving experience.
Marine life in Silfra is quite sparse because of the low water temperatures (around 36°F or 2°C). However, the cold doesn’t bother the green algae that thrive on the rocks in the rift. Prepare for an out-of-this-world subaquatic chasm of sublime colors and mystical rock formations!
Once you arrive at Silfra, our experienced dive guides will give a thorough briefing. This will include details about diving procedures, signs and signals, national park rules, equipment, the route, and, most importantly, how to use the dry suit.
We’ll gear you up and walk you to the entrance of the dive site. You’ll have to walk a few hundred meters in your dry suit before getting to the water. You’ll first stand on a platform with water up to your waist so you can comfortably get used to the frigid water temperature. After each diver has done a weight check with the dive guide, it will be time to plunge into the rift!
You’ll dive through each of the four sections of Silfra. The first section is the Silfra Deep Crack, which is long and narrow as it winds to the left and right. As we dive further, the fissure widens into what we call the Silfra Hall. It leads to the fissure's deepest point called the Silfra Cathedral. The maximum depth allowed for a dive at Silfra is 18 meters, but the visibility is far deeper than that. After the Cathedral, we’ll turn left to enter the final part of the dive, Silfra Lagoon.
After stepping onto the exit platform, your guide will help you remove your fins and you’ll have a chance to get the blood flowing with the roughly 1300-feet (400-meter) walk back to the car park.
Once back in the car park, we’ll help you take the rest of your gear off and get you some hot chocolate and cookies. Warm your hands while telling us about your dive!
Important! For our diving tours in Silfra, you are required to have a dry suit certification or a log book with 10 logged dry suit dives in the last two years. However, if you don’t have any of these, you can join our 2-day drysuit specialty course that includes PADI Dry Suit Specialty course on day one and diving in Silfra on the second day. Otherwise, check out our snorkeling tour in Silfra, which doesn’t require any certification or experience!
Requirements
Drysuit diving experience in the form of either Drysuit certification or a minimum of 10 logged drysuit dives. You need to have dived in a drysuit within the last 2 years. Your dive guide will ask you to see proof of your certification or logbook before the tour starts.
All divers have to supply their height/weight upon booking to ensure we bring you suitable equipment. For safety reasons, all divers need to understand instructions in English and be able to communicate with the dive guide in English. Please evaluate your physical health, if you have some medical issues please check health certificate and get physician approval if needed.
In order to participate in this tour, you have to have an Open Water diver certification or higher.
Please read our Diving Handbook for more information about the tour.
Age limit: Minimum 18 years old
Weight limit: 50-120 kg
Height limit: 155-200 cm
Note:
Yes, you need to have previous experience in dry suit diving. To dive in Silfra you need to have a special Dry Suit Certification or a logbook showing that you’ve completed at least 10 dry suit dives, one of them being in the last two years. Your guide will ask you to present your documents before the tour starts. Please note that without the required documents, you will not be allowed to dive.
If you aren’t dry suit certified but have an Open Water Diver Certification, we also offer a PADI Dry Suit Specialty Course.
If you’re certified with PADI but don’t have your certification card, please contact us well in advance and we’ll check if we can find you in the PADI online database. If you show up to the tour start without your certification card or without contacting us in advance — we will not allow you to participate in the diving tour.
We provide you with an undersuit, a dry suit, and all the additional equipment required to dive in Silfra: including cold water regulators, a BCD (buoyancy control device), a weight harness, and tanks. You’ll also be given a mask, fins, a hood, and gloves.
We use high-quality neoprene dry suits from Waterproof and O´Three manufacturers.
Absolutely. Just make sure it’s waterproof if you want to take your camera underwater.
The maximum depth of dive is 59 ft (18 m). However, most of the dive is spent at a shallower depth due to the topography of the site.
Each Silfra dive is approximately 30 minutes.
Yes, complimentary pick-up and drop-off from Reykjavik is included on all of our diving tours.
You can dive in the Silfra Fissure year-round, though it’s a little bit colder in the winter due to the frigid outside temperatures
