Reykjavík Grapevine - Feb 2021, Page 30

As the frigid water swirls around and
envelopes you, it‘s not unusual to ex-
perience a sharp involuntary intake of
breath. And as you slip below the sur-
face, the peace you crave washes over
you, delivering you from the turbulent
world above.
Of course, you‘re breathing life-
supporting air from a tank and you‘re
snugly squeezed into special clothing
to keep most of you warm and dry un-
derwater (well, warm-ish and dry-ish).
It‘s all designed to allow the serenity of
the underwater world to wash over you
in safety and comfort.
Welcome to the wonderful world of
cold-water scuba diving.
The liquid glacier
!ingvellir National Park has a crisp
chill to it on the February morning that
we arrive. The visitor centre is closed,
its empty car park a reminder that Ice-
land has achieved yet another day of
tourist-free status. However the park
and its lake—!ingvallavatn—never
close. And today we have come to slip
beneath the surface of the lake, seek-
ing a different kind of covid isolation.
Langjökull, the glacier some 50km
to the northeast, provides most of the
water for !ingvallavatn. Ice melts and
the run-off water spends years seeping
through subterranean lava fields to-
wards the lake, but this process makes
it no warmer. !ingvallavatn remains a
reliably chilly 3°C year-round.
At the north end of the lake lies Sil-
fra, the world-famous site beloved of
divers and snorkelers who come for
its magnificent underwater fissure—
a crack in the crust of the earth. But
as beautiful as Silfra is, our mission
today is to investigate her darker, more
mysterious sibling, Davi"sgjá—a dive
site hidden five kilometres away, on
!ingvallavatn’s eastern shore.
We meet our dive guide Clarence
and after a brief run through of what
we are about to do, we get into our gear.
Once wrapped in suits to keep us warm
and dry and strapped into the scuba
gear that allows us to breathe under-
water, we slide off the rocky bank and
into the lake. After that involuntary
sharp intake of breath—the suits don‘t
cover your head, or your hands—we
descend into the cold alone. There is
not another diver in sight.
A crack in the Earth
The landscape underwater is as breath-
taking as the temperature shock. As we
drop into the clearest water imagin-
able—no hint of cloudiness to reduce
the visibility—huge angular boulders
loom on either side of us, placed there
by millennia of seismic sculpting to
form a channel. Above the lake, the
absence of wind creates a mirror-
like surface, the underside of which
reflects our watery chasm to make it
appear twice as tall. The low, wintery
afternoon sun glances on the lake, re-
luctantly illuminating the greys and
blues of our rock and water cathedral.
No signs of life
The fissure is only six metres deep at
this point; it drops to 21 metres fur-
ther south, in parts inaccessible today
due to the icy surface. But even in this
relatively shallow water, the feeling of
expansive space is striking, as is the
sense of peace and solitude. The only
evidence of life that Clarence and I see
is each other. The only thing to break
the silence is our breathing through
the scuba equipment. And the only
communications to distract us from
our thoughts are the occasional hand
signals that divers flash to check in
with each other.
As we move slowly through our
private aquatic canyon, we eventually
reach the edge of the ice above. The
sunlight hits it and filters through,
causing flashes and sparkles that catch
a diver’s eye and tempt them further
under the thick, solid surface. As we
shallow up to take a closer look, our
exhaled bubbles congregate under the
ice, forming little trapped quicksilver
pools that flow and dance. They’re at-
tempting to find the edge of the ice so
that they can escape upwards into the
air; quite the opposite to us.
Eventually with our air supplies get-
ting low—and our core body tempera-
tures to match—we emerge reluctantly
from our watery realm of ice, rock and
light, and get stuck into the flask of
hot chocolate thoughtfully provided
by Clarence.
When !ingvellir‘s visitor centre is
open again and the crowds have re-
turned to Silfra, remember Davi"sgjá
tucked away further around the lake. If
it’s post-covid isolation you’re looking
for, we may have found you the perfect
spot.
Travel distance
from Reykjavík:
66 km
Tour provided by:
dive.is
Car provided by:
gocarrental.is
An Underwater
Cathedral of Ice,
Rock and Li!ht
Slippin! into the hidden !lacial waters of Davi"s! já
Words: John Pearson Photos: Clarence Voon & Art Bicnick
Travel
Excuse me while I touch this ice The cold crystal waters of Davi"sgjá
The journey begins
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