Final Thoughts On Iceland

Well, I'm home now. As much as it will pain me to be back to work on Monday, sometimes it's nice to be home. I'm really looking forward to my trip back to Petrolia tonight, it will be great to see everyone and go through my pictures. The latter activity might be an issue as my laptop appears to have died... again. Same problem as the first two times. Oh well, at least it didn't fail my while I was away.

I just wanted to close out this trip with a few final thought, tips really, for anyone considering a trip to Iceland (which I highly recommend.) So here's my tips for the Icelandic adventure:

1) Your hot water is probably going to smell like sulphur. That's because it gets pumped out of the ground, and there's nothing to be done about it, so save yourself the trouble of complaining to the front desk.

2) The wind in Iceland can be savage. This is largely attributed to the lack of trees. Whatever the cause, make sure you have a good jacket that is breathable but blocks out the wind.

3) Regarding the aforementioned wind: when it's that windy the weather can change in a hurry. If you are going out make sure you dress for changes in the weather.

4) Layer up so that you've got something to take off; the weather can turn nice just as quickly as it can turn foul.

5) Due to the high winds the rain can travel in an alarmingly horizontal fashion. While umbrellas are commonly used, and widely available, in the long run you may be better served by a rain suit, especially if you are out on adventurous activities.

6) Don't burden yourself with trying to find Kronur in your home country, or ever travelling with huge amounts of cash unless you are going to be away from a major centre for awhile. Bank machines are everywhere in the capital and plastic is very widely accepted. Just make sure that you have a 4-digit PIN.

7) If you are even considering a trip in August make sure that you look up when the Reykjavik Marathon is held. It's always a Saturday in August. This is important because whatever day the marathon is, that evening will be Culture Night, and you don't want to miss that.

8) Over-the-counter pharmaceuticals are not as readily available as they are in Canada. Even mild painkillers for a headache appear to only be available in pharmacies, and even then they are kept behind the counter. With the pharmacy hours not being particularly long it's advised that if you are even slightly prone to headache, allergy, etc. that you bring some meds with you.

9) The day-night cycle shifts around quite quickly. Make sure that you are aware of when the sun rises and sets for the time that you are there and if the sun will be up during hours that you are likely to be sleeping bring a sleep mask. Heavy blinds and curtains aren't necessarily something you can count on.

That's really about all I can offer in terms of advice for the perspective Iceland tourist. I can only now reiterate that I highly recommend this as a vacation spot. It's got all the excitement and adventure that you could ask for, but is quite easy to travel to since they've got a very well established tourist trade and English is spoke almost universally.

To close, I had a staggeringly good time and I really do hope that I get the opportunity to visit again. Hopefully sometime soon. I'll be back home in Petrolia for this weekend, visiting friends and family. Next weekend will find Graydyn, Susan, Jay, and myself in Montreal, so look for some posts then. Thanks for reading, and an extra special thanks for those who commented while I was away, it was great to have that feedback and to know that everyone was keeping tabs on me.

For now, this is Colin, signing off.

My Last Day In Iceland Draws To A Close

It's truly sad to say, but the sun is setting on my last full day in Reykjavik. Tomorrow will be almost entirely a travel day. I'm really hoping that they've got a Wi-Fi hotspot somewhere in the airport that I can make a final post from, but if not I'll post from Canada tomorrow with my final thoughts on the trip, and a few useful tips I've compiled. For now, I'll just focus on the events of the day.

I let myself sleep in again this morning, once again choosing a good night's sleep over the free breakfast. I actually ended up having a quite a good breakfast at Cafe Paris, which is close to my guesthouse. You always find the good restaurants on your last day don't you?

Left with a bit of time to kill I began to wander aimlessly around Reykjavik. I ended up approaching Hallgrimskirkja from the back of the church, and got some shots that show how impressive the structure must be without all the scaffolding on it.



It really is a massive structure. Also, on my first day here I'd just snapped a few photos as I wandered past, so this time I decided to actually poke my head in for a moment. I rather enjoy the fact that in the Viking tradition even their pipe organ looks a bit like a weapon:



After snapping a few more shots of the church I went to catch the bus for my rafting trip. Unfortunately this concludes the portion of the post where I have any pictures to show. My camera is waterproof, but I didn't have a good way of securing it to myself for the rafting ride and I decided that it was just too risky to bring it along. It's a shame too, I could have got some great pictures.

The rafting itself was a blast. Almost everyone on my raft was Canadian, and we all got questioned on why we would have to come to Iceland for rafting when there was certainly perfectly good rafting to be had in Canada. I guess sometimes the things that are close to home just get taken for granted. I've been informed that there's some excellent white water rafting to be had in Ottawa for those of you who don't feel like making the trek to Iceland.

For anyone considering the Hvítá rafting experience here, you should keep in mind that you will get wet, and you will get cold. This is just part of the Icelandic rafting experience, and should be something that you are prepared to deal with. Beyond that it's not really a difficult river and makes for a good first ride. There were plenty of flat stretches where we were just fooling around by playing various games while standing on the side walls, which invariably ended with someone (often me) in the water. It really gets you used to the whole feel of rafting.

Since returning to Reykjavik I've just had time for dinner, and then to get here to my beloved cafe for a blog post. After this it will probably be time for me to call it a night. As I mentioned earlier I'm going to get a wrap-up post up either tomorrow or Friday, so check in for that. Also, as Graydyn pointed out in the comments, I'll be in Montreal the Labour Day long weekend, and I'll hopefully be able to get a post or two in there as well.

Check in soon, more posts to follow! Thanks for reading everyone!

A Slight Departure From My Master Plan

Okay, so with only a couple of days left in Iceland I'd managed to formulate a fairly concrete master plan. Today we white water rafting at noon, which I expected to take up the whole afternoon, so I figured that I'd sleep in as much as possible to make sure that I was fully refreshed, and then make rafting the focus of my day. Tomorrow I'd intended to hit a couple of interesting sounding museums and spend the day around Reykjavik.

Arriving at the Cintimani Centre at noon today I was informed that I wasn't in the system. Apparently Reykjavik Excursion, whom I booked this tour with, outsource most of their tours to other more specialize tour groups, and (I was informed) have a habit of forgetting to actually call these tour groups to book people into the tours they had been sold. I was quite ready to recommend Reykjavik Excursions as a convenient place to book any sort of tour that might happen to interest you, but this puts a damper on that plan. They still operate the FlyBus, the most convenient way of getting between Reykjavik, the Blue Lagoon, and the airport at Keflavik, so don't give up on them completely, but you may wish to exercise some caution when it comes to booking anything else with them.

That said, the good people at Cintamani were willing to accept my ticket to the rafting tour and book me in for tomorrow, so at least I don't have to go shout at someone from Reykjavik Excursions about getting my money back. The unfortunate thing is that I'd really just slept in and then killed time this morning waiting for the rafting trip, when I could have been using that time to see the sights.

Realizing that I'd already lost half the day I immediately set out to recoup what was left of yesterday's plan so I headed in the direction of the National Museum of Iceland. Along the way I came across this:





That is a rather substantial cemetery in Reykjavik that David had pointed out upon returning from one of our diving trips a few days ago. I believe it's the biggest in the country, though I can't confirm that. It's obviously quite old, and it was fascinating to walk around, especially with the drizzling weather setting an ideal mood. I just love the fact that it looks more like a forest than a cemetery. There are trees everywhere, often dominating the plot, with only a tiny chuck of stone to let you know that it's actually a grave. Very natural, and very nice.

From there I went across the road to the museum. There's a rather large, permanent exhibit in place on the history of Iceland that's well worth checking out. It's free on Wednesdays, which is why it's even more unfortunate that I couldn't have gone tomorrow instead, but at a mere 800ISK it's still worth checking out no matter what day of the week you manage to get there. The light was dim, and most exhibits were behind glass, so photography was difficult, but I managed a few good shots.

Below is the actual axe head and wood block used in the last ever execution carried out in Iceland!



The next shot depicts some settlement-era weapons that have been found in various grave sites.



Some of you are surely wondering at the strange coincidence that the only pictures that turned out happen to display one type of weapon or another. Those that know me better will realize that medieval weapons are the reason that I go to museums and that I have not, in fact, photographed anything else.

From there I began my final mission that I'd planned for tomorrow: Souvenir Shopping. Whenever I'm planning on living out of my backpack for awhile I bring at least one simple nylon stuff sack. This allows me to put my dirty clothes in a distinct bag to keep them separate from the clean stuff. It's just an organizational aid really. I found out today though that there is a great advantage to having your clothes in a stuff sack as opposed to neatly folded in your backpack... they take up a lot less space. With liberal amounts of squeezing, pushing, and swearing I was able to get all of the clothes that I've worn up to this point into an incredibly compact little package. I have no further worries about shipping silly souvenirs home, and all without having to buy an extra piece of luggage.

To Corey's point, yes, I could buy Brennivin at the duty-free in the airport. However, since it's become such a discussion point I didn't want to risk getting through airport security only to find that there was none to be had at the duty-free. I therefore decided to just go buy some at the local liquor store. I could have just bought a 1L bottle, but going with two 500mL bottles allowed me to get them in plastic bottles which should have far less risk of breakage. I was willing to throw out some of my clothes, but I'd rather they not all smell like caraway schnapps. Everything else I've got will just be wrapped in the few remaining articles of clothing that I'm either wearing, or will wear tomorrow, and I will have to hope that they survive the travel-related abuses that are sure to befall them.

As a side note, I've decided to take the advice that my dear Aunt Jeanette gave in the comments section of a previous post and do this for a living. From this point forward my new job title is "Adventurer" and that is how I intend to introduce myself. It should be noted that I haven't yet figured out how to earn any money by adventuring, so I will continue to occasionally perform the duties of a computer programmer in order to fund my hobbies of eating, having a roof over my head, and adventuring for a living. That's a fairly minor footnote though and should not detract in anyway from viewing me as a paramount adventurer while I figure out how to get paid for this ridiculously lavish lifestyle.

Well, I've still got a few hours left in this day, but the weather is (as it has been all day) truly miserable. I may decide to just stay holed up in my cafe here and have a couple beers to pass the time. I'll be back on tomorrow night, hopefully with tales of rafting!

Onward, To Adventure!

Hehehe, I specifically asked someone to take that picture today so that I could start my blog post with it. That's how much I'm thinking ahead for you guys!

In case there was some lack of clarity as to the purpose of my awesome toque and those crampons, I was doing my glacier hike today. I actually mis-reported yesterday that I'd be climbing Langjökull (Long Glacier) but in fact I was climbing Sólheimajökull (Sliding Glacier) which is along the South coast. If you're looking for it on a map of Iceland you probably won't find it as it's actually an extension of Mýrdalsjökull, which is considerably bigger. I had a choice of activities when I booked this, and half of our group split off when we got dropped of to hike Sólheimajökull and went on to a snowmobile ride on Mýrdalsjökull. I'd thought that sounded like fun, but decided that it would be more enjoyable to hike around rather that bomb along on a noisy snow mobile. That turned out to be an excellent choice, since apparently the snowmobile trip got cut very short due to the extraordinarily high winds we were experiencing today. I thought a few times that I was going to get blown off the face of the glacier! High winds are extremely common in Iceland, a fact that's often attributed to the lack of trees. It's just something you've got to be prepared for. Aside from the small hurricane that we were hiking through it was actually quite warm up there, and all the thermal gear was probably not entirely necessary.

Here's a shot of our approach to the glacier:



Another picture once we got on there:



And another:



You'll notice in the shots above that there are conical piles of black dirt everywhere. Glaciers are always full of debris, and around these parts that debris is likely to be largely from volcanic ash, which stains the glacier black. The reason they form in conical piles is that they settle to the bottom of the holes caused by running water, as evidenced here:

Once the walls of the hole melt out and away the landscape levels off, leaving cones of ice that were protected by the layer of sediment. So those conical "piles" of dirt are actually chunks of ice and probably only have about an inch of sediment on them.

It's a pretty uneven landscape, which makes a guide handy. They always say that you should take a guide with you on glaciers to watch out for holes and cracks. This implies that you need someone to point out the giant holes in the ice to you. Honestly, if you don't see those holes you really need to pay better attention. Either that or you are suffering from a severe visual impairment, and may wish to consider an activity other than glacier hiking.

I actually think that the real reason a guide is handy is that these cracks and holes often join together into an absolute labyrinth, and I imagine that if you weren't familiar with the glacier you'd waste a lot of time hitting dead ends and backtracking.

Not that the danger of the holes should be underestimated, sometimes it's a long fall:

After checking out the glacier we stopped at a couple of neat waterfalls on the way back to Reykjavik. Below is Skogafoss:

And this is Seljalandsfoss:

That was particularly fun since we could walk in behind it:

Tomorrow's rafting adventure doesn't start until 12:30, which gives me a chance to sleep in. I'm pretty happy about that, since I didn't sleep great last night and I'm feeling pretty beat. After that I've got a free day on Wednesday, and then I fly out on Thursday, so my adventure is drawing to a close. I'm still trying to figure out what to do on Wednesday, I've got to prioritize all the activities that I haven't got around to yet!

Those of you who have been reading the comments section probably had a good chuckle at Graydyn's suggestion that I throw out my socks in order to facilitate the transport of Brennivin. What's more funny is how much he and I think alike. I really should have brought a proper suitcase on this trip since I've had the luxury of a single base camp and haven't had to lug all my luggage around the country this time. A suitcase wouldn't have been an inconvenience and would have afforded me a lot more space. As it is my backpack was STUFFED when I set out, and now I want to bring home a ton of souvenirs. I've been eyeing up all my shirts trying to decide which I like the least. It's entirely possible that I'll arrive home without any of the clothes that I left with. Wish me luck in not running up a high clothing bill.

Svarti Daudhi? Why Do They Call It That?

Okay, before I get into the events of yesterday evening and today, I want to show off some of my pictures from yesterday's dives. Since I was unable to post any pictures with yesterday's update, here's Silfra. I think you'll find these pictures a bit better than the previous day's offering:

There you have it folks. THAT is why I came to Iceland! Everything else is just gravy at this point. It's pretty delicious gravy mind you. I've already decided that this is not going to be the last time that I find myself on Icelandic soil. Once I've got a group together I'm coming back and doing a driving tour so that I can see more than just what can be reached in a day-trip from Reykjavik.

Now, on to this Culture Night phenomenon. It's, as the name implies, a celebration of culture. Music, art, food, it's all out on display, and this apparently attracts about half of Iceland to descend upon Reykjavik as evidenced in the photo below:

If you'd like some contrast, here's what that same street looked like this morning:

The whole affair was absolutely manic. Tons of streets were blocked off, and everywhere you turned there were food stalls, and musicians on stages. In the big square near my guesthouse there was a group of guys playing jazz on a huge stage. A little way down the road I started to hear some hard rock being played, and turned down a small side street to find a tiny stage with a few guys rocking out. Down another small street I came across a local tattoo parlor where the local motorcycle club had put their bikes on display for everyone to see, with a rock trio playing songs from the roof. Further down I discovered someone selling samosas, and a rap duo performing the first bit of Icelandic rap I'd ever heard.

I popped into a pub to grab a beer and ended up chatting with a fellow Canadian who's been living in Iceland for the past 8 years. If any of you are looking for help planning a trip to Iceland have a chat with Kent at nordictrails.org and he'll help you out! I decided to stick around for another beer before the festival's fireworks display started, but first I thought I'd better try the local spirit, Brennivin. That's literally translated as "burn wine" but it's also commonly referred to as Svarti Daudhi, the Black Death. It's a schnapps made from potatoes and flavoured with caraway. I actually found it quite pleasant, but that could have been the fact that it kicked me in the head so hard that I lost some of my sense of taste. Following it up with two more beers and then calling it a night should not have made me feel as rotten as I did this morning... but there you have it. Actually, I just get headaches out of the blue, but still, when I do I need something to blame, and Brennivin seems a convenient scapegoat at this point.

That brings me to my next fun fact. If you are travelling to Iceland, bring a small med kit. Actually, that's sensible advice no matter where you go, and I'm very foolish for not following that particular traveller's law myself. I'm not just suggesting the med kit for Iceland because some Brennivin might sneak up from behind and cudgel you senseless either. You never know when you might need painkillers, antihistamines, etc. and unlike in Canada, you can't just drop by the grocery store and pick some up. As far as I've been able to tell even a simple painkiller can only be obtained from the pharmacy, and the only one I could find wasn't open on the weekends. So I had a bit of a long morning until I'd consumed enough caffeinated beverages to straighten myself out.

Not that I was about to let a slight headache slow me down! This morning after I'd grabbed a quick bite to eat I set out to the harbour in search of the flea market where Kent said I stood my best chance of finding hákarl, the fermented shark delicacy for which Iceland is famous in the culinary world. I wandered around for awhile without seeing anything before returning to my room to consult my guidebook. I could have sworn that I'd seen some mention of it in there, but alas, I could seem to find in anywhere in the book when it really counted. Unfortunately that's a weekend-only thing, so I've missed any shot I would have had of checking it out. With any luck I'll still be able to find some hákarl, but my searches of the local supermarkets have yet to yield positive results.

Having failed in that mission I decided to go checkout Reykjavik 871 ± 2. It's a display of the remains of an early Viking longhouse, and the name comes from the fact that they've estimated the date of the settlement at the year 871 AD, with a margin of error of 2 years. It's an interesting story; the longhouse had fallen into disuse, collapsed, and been buried in volcanic ash many years ago. As Reykjavik built up a building was constructed over the site. Then, in the year 2000 an expansion was proposed to the building which involved construction on the foundation. That's when the ruins were discovered, and the Icelandic people's love of their heritage really shines through. Rather than destroy the ruins, or scrape the building plan, they set to work unearthing the ruins, preserving them as best they could, and then simply built the basement of the new building around them, turning that into a cultural museum and allowing construction of the building to continue. Real genius. It's not a huge exhibit and won't take you long to tour through, but it's incredible to see what they've accomplished from an archaeological perspective, and it's completely free to enter.

After that I grabbed some lunch and then grabbed a bus down to Perlan ("The Pearl" in English) for a tour of the Saga Museum. It's a brief discussion of the history of Iceland, with eerily lifelike models adding a visual aid to the story. Here's an example of the one of the displays:

They had a video of how it was all put together, and the whole process was very familiar, having already experimented with the techniques before. The reason that these statues look so lifelike is that they are actually built from algenate moulds taken from real people. It's a technique that Graydyn and I experimented with in an attempt to make Halloween masks one year. It was pretty cool to watch it being done as a full-scale operation.

While at Perlan I went up to their observation deck, which allows a 360 view of Reykjavik from a great vantage point:

Perlan itself is quite interesting, as it's the main distribution point for Reykjavik's hot water. It's something that David described to me on the way to our first dive on Thursday. Apparently the Icelandic people have no need of hot water heaters since the country is riddled with sites where water is bubbling out of the ground a near-boiling temperatures anyway. For Reykjavik this geothermally heated water is just pumped to Perlan and then distributed to the city. I was happy to learn this on Thursday, since I'd wondered why the hot water in my shower smelled so much like Sulfur. Apparently this is pretty standard in Iceland.

Another fun thing to do at the Perlan is to just go for a walk from there. There's a warren of trails running for miles out from the South and East of Perlan. I didn't go too far, but it was a fun walk all the same. Everyone fixates on the bleak, alien landscape that's so typical of Iceland, and they forget that there are still small pockets like this:

It actually reminded me a bit of Canada. There aren't many trees in Iceland, but they are certainly there.

Well, I'm going to go find something for dinner, and then call it an early night. It's up early again tomorrow for my glacier tour. I'm expecting that to be a fairly full day since we're going to Langjökull, which is considerably further away than any of the dive sites I've been too. I'm anticipating a fairly long, but very interesting drive up there. If I'm not too late getting back tomorrow I'll jump on and post some pictures. Adios for now.

It's A Madhouse Out There

Well, today concluded my diving tour of Iceland. We were back at Silfra, the site of my first dive and took two more runs through it, following slightly different routes. I charged the camera last night, but it still only had enough juice to be constantly on for the first dive. Still, I seem to have got a better handle on the operation of the underwater camera, and my pictures turned out a lot better. However, I will not be posting any of those pictures tonight as I'm currently at the library. It's Culture Day in Reykjavík (the accented "i" is much easier on an Icelandic keyboard!) and the place is packed! By "the place" I don't mean my usual Internet café, I mean Reykjavík! The main street and many of the streets connecting to it are shut down and full of people. Every little shop and restaurant is full of people. Even the library is a pretty happenin' place right now. I tried to get into my usual spot, but without success, so pictures will have to wait till tomorrow. Once I'm finished here I'm going to go check out the wild street party happening outside. Just a quick five minute walk brought me across numerous live music acts, so finding entertainment shouldn't be an issue. Getting to bed before sunrise with all this commotion might be another issue, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I've got nothing booked for tomorrow, and I'm just going to play it by ear. Monday is my day on the glacier. I should be on with a more thorough post tomorrow. Take care for now!

Okay, Now I'm Safe To Describe The Day

I just wanted to get some pictures posted before anything else prevented me from doing so, therefore the previous post is full of my favorite shots from the past few days. With any luck I can get back to integrating the day's pictures in that day's post. Speaking of which, apparently tomorrow is "Culture Day" in Reykjavik, which turns the city into a giant party. Depending on what time I get back from diving and how much of a madhouse the city has become I may not get a chance to make a post tomorrow. The cafes that serve as hotspots throughout the city tend to be pretty happening pubs in the evenings, which may make it impossible to get any blogging done. So if I'm MIA tomorrow I'll try to make up for it on Sunday.

Okay, on to today. After my late night last night I decided to pass on breakfast and sleep as late as I could manage. That worked out fairly well and I didn't rouse myself till ab out 10:15. By the time I'd got out the door it was past 11, so I just started a tour of Reykjavik and grabbed a hotdog along the way. I'd already wandered around a bit on my first day, but I was just way to tired to take it all in, so I started again, this time refreshed and in the mood to explore. I wandered down the main street, taking a brief detour to check out Tjornin (lit. "Pond" in Icelandic) a small lake in the middle of town. It's full of ducks and gulls, some of which look like a typical seagull except bulkier, and with an odd red marking on their bottom beak. I'll have to look them up sometime.

I also made a detour into a clothing shop to buy a jacket. I equipped myself with clothes that assumed a slightly cooler summer temperature, which is what I'd been seeing while monitoring the temperature from Canada. Way off base. It's been quite cool here, and fairly windy, which is apparently pretty common. I've been making due, although I was a bit chilly yesterday. However, I was a bit concerned that I was going to continue to be slightly less than comfortable, and also that I would be woefully unequipped for my glacier hike on Monday. Fortunately the Icelanders know how to gear up for the weather. Unfortunately this comes at a cost. The most popular brand (or at least the best advertised) seems to be 66 degrees North. I took a peak in there and was unable to find a light jacket for less than 29,900 ISK. That's $252.43 CAD according to Google at the time of writing. They're all very technical garments, but I can get technical in Canada. Just go down to the MEC... WAY technical. I managed to find a different brand in a small shop and got a groovy coat that's very breathable and waterproof, but light and warm for 19,900. I got a tax-free receipt which I can take to the airport on my way out and get 15% of that back too. Still more than I wanted to pay since I ALREADY HAVE A JACKET, but it's cool, and I needed it. I'm just embarrassed as a Canadian abroad to be caught off guard by the weather.

I wandered out to the coast of Reykjavik harbour after that, and then made my way back to the guesthouse in time to get changed and meet my ride for the diving day. Our Divemaster today was Louis, and it was just Louis, Helmut, and myself on the trip today. We went out to Gardhur, which is out past the airport on the south peninsula and did two dives there. As you'll see if you've checked out the pictures, the water clarity wasn't so hot, but it was still very interesting. We were constantly trailed by huge schools of Herring, and we saw quite a few Scorpion Fish and Skates chilling out on the bottom.

I learned an important lesson today on my second dry suit dive. When checking things out on the bottom I generally like to kick my feet up so that I'm head-down and able to get my face close to what I'm observing without crashing into it. Not a great idea in a dry suit. You see, you keep it filled with air to control your buoyancy, and if you become too buoyant you vent air from a vent on your left shoulder. Well, if you get your feet too far above your head all the air rushed up to your feet and you lose the ability to vent it from your shoulder. Being perfectly upright streamlines you, and you shoot up to the surface at an ever increasing rate as the pressure lessens. Fortunately I wasn't very deep and was therefore sparred the kind of debilitating injury that this kind of bonehead maneuver would normally bring. A lesson well learned in controlling my buoyancy and body position.

The second dive of the day ended up being a learning experience as well. We got caught in an unexpectedly strong current and had to resort to a technique that most divers would normal avoid: making direct contact with the ocean life. We dumped the air out of our suits to become quite negatively buoyant and then pulled ourselves along the bottom by the stems of the kelp until we were out of the worst of it. I owe Helmut a beer, since he grabbed hold of me while I was still positively buoyant and kept me from getting swept away. It's great when you're a novice to be diving with experienced people. I was actually really fortunate that I'd run out the battery to Dad's camera on my first dive of the day and left it behind for the second. Any extra drag would have been detrimental at that point.

Well, it's almost 10:00 now, and I think I'm going to start making my way back to the hotel. I rushed over here as soon as I got in to make sure that I'd finally get some pictures posted, and I could still use a shower. The dry suit doesn't cover your hands and face from the salt water. Also, I don't have the luxury of sleeping in tomorrow, it's up at 7:00 to be ready for another 8:00 pickup, and then back to Silfra. I'll try to get some better pictures this time, although I'll probably do one dive without the camera so that I can be more focused on the actual diving.

I'll check in soon. Hope everyone back home is doing well!

First, The Much Anticipated Pictures

Okay guys, you've all been very patient waiting for pictures, so I'll post the details of today's adventures separately. First, here's a bunch of pictures!


Not a great shot, since I've got a lot of the inside of a bus here, but it displays the general look of the landscape between Keflavik (the airport) and Reykjavik.


The Blue Lagoon! This shot comes closest to really capturing the weird colour of the water.


Also from the Blue Lagoon. This is what the rocks look like at the water's edge... and I swam in that. Hmmm....


Hallgrimskirkja, probably the most distinctive monument in Reykjavik. Not normally covered in scaffolding.

My humble abode.

A nice shot of the main shopping street in Reykjavik.

An underwater shot from Silfra. Sadly this didn't turn out in perfect focus. It's a real shame, but I hope you still get a sense of the amazing clarity of the water, and the incredible geology which I was swimming through.

Another Silfra shot which is, sadly, not in perfect focus. I was still trying to figure out the camera at this point, all while wearing thick wetsuit gloves, so I think I was hammering down on the shutter too quickly and not giving the camera time to focus.

A better Silfra shot. Starting to get the hang of it at this point. Fun fact, my dive buddy Helmut had a dive computer which recorded the water temperature at a balmy 1 degree Celsius.

An above-water shot of the Silfra dive sight. We followed that network of pools out to the main lake.

Some random super-cool dude in a dry suit. At this point he is blissfully unaware of just how wet he's about to be.

The original Geysir.

The mighty Gullfoss! Can't get that bad boy all in one shot, but I liked this one best.

The crater at Keridh. It's hard to tell from this shot, but that's a LONG way down!

A random shot of a Reykjavik street. This city has an incredible number of brightly coloured buildings.

Today's Divemaster Louis in the foreground, and in the background Helmut checking out the fairly significant jump we were going to be making to get into the water. I don't think I'd ever done a giant-stride entry from 8 feet before.

A picture of Helmut. Please note the water level here. This is after our second dive and the tide had come in to the point that it was washing over the pier.

Helmut found a shark's egg! How cool is that?

Water clarity wasn't so hot today, but I did manage a shot of these Herring. There were tons of them trailing us on our first dive.

Managed to get close enough to this Scorpion Fish that it negated the poor water clarity.

Okay, I'll make another post right away to tell you all about what I did today, but before any further technical or time difficulties prevent me from showing off my pictures, I'm posting this!