Diving in Iceland

[SFuterfas]

I'm also interested in diving Silfra (and other locations in Iceland) without a guide, as my husband and I are experienced /certified drysuit divers and enjoy diving on our own. It seems like all of the dives are shore diving so I really don't want to pay hundreds of dollars to do something we can do on our own, without having to dive with a bunch of inexperienced drysuit divers.

Is kofunarvorur located in Reykjavic? I went onto the site but there didn't seem to be an address and unfortunately my Icelandic is non-existant.

Also, what time of year is the best?

 

[Arizona]

Any updates to this thread? I am planning on going this October and hope to hook up with a local club or local divers as well.

 

[Rich1234]

Any updates to this thread? I am planning on going this October and hope to hook up with a local club or local divers as well.

got back

I got back from Iceland yesterday. Silfra was amazing. We dived it twice with Dive.is and then rented our own cylinders/weights the following day so that we could do it on our own (saved a lot of money even with the car hire).

We rented from kofunarvorur.is They are about a 10 minute drive from the centre of Reykjavik.

It's an easy site to dive. You can't get lost but you could miss the exit point. That happened to us. We surfaced, climbed up onto some rocks to see where we were and then carried on. It just meant swimming against a small current.

Here are some photos...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0l7pbuvsfwoj3sq/AADfLtUxYMEo0ezgv62pql5ka?dl=0

---------- Post added September 19th, 2014 at 06:20 AM ----------

kofunarvorur.is are only between 4pm and 6pm though so you can't rent/return kit outside of those time

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

got back

I got back from Iceland yesterday. Silfra was amazing. We dived it twice with Dive.is and then rented our own cylinders/weights the following day so that we could do it on our own (saved a lot of money even with the car hire).

We rented from kofunarvorur.is They are about a 10 minute drive from the centre of Reykjavik.

It's an easy site to dive. You can't get lost but you could miss the exit point. That happened to us. We surfaced, climbed up onto some rocks to see where we were and then carried on. It just meant swimming against a small current.

Here are some photos...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0l7pbuvsfwoj3sq/AADfLtUxYMEo0ezgv62pql5ka?dl=0

---------- Post added September 19th, 2014 at 06:20 AM ----------

kofunarvorur.is are only between 4pm and 6pm though so you can't rent/return kit outside of those time

I am glad you did it! Did you get the chance to do any of the ocean dives they advertise? If the site can be dived on your own would you still recommend booking a tour or should I just rent the tanks and do it on my own?

Thanks for the pictures and the info.

 

[hazmat]

Congratulations! And wasn't the water delicious?

I loved having beer in the Blue Lagoon.

 

[Rich1234]

I am glad you did it! Did you get the chance to do any of the ocean dives they advertise? If the site can be dived on your own would you still recommend booking a tour or should I just rent the tanks and do it on my own?

Thanks for the pictures and the info.

No we just dived the Silfra due to lack of time. We planned to dive Kleifarvatn as that is a shore dive too but again we just couldn't fit it in.

Always best to book a tour just so that you confidently know the dive site. Having said that, you could probably just leave a small gap and follow one of the groups. They'll be divers in the car park around 09:30.

---------- Post added September 19th, 2014 at 02:59 PM ----------

Congratulations! And wasn't the water delicious?

I loved having beer in the Blue Lagoon.

Yep, I would buy Silfra water in the shops!

 

[zebroc]

Hi there,

I just wanted to take the chance to contribute to this topic, as I am doing my DM in Iceland right now.

I dive Silfra nearly on a daily basis and I have done Gardur and Kleifarvatn in September 2014.


I am not sure wether you're allowed dive Silfra on your own, without a guide, but I'll find out tomorrow and let you know.


Although Silfra is a very easy site to dive, there are some things to consider:
* You should come with drysuit experience, especially when diving alone. The depth profile is very much up-down-up-down, so the second you find good buoancy it is ruined again because you have to go up over a shallow part.
* If you dive here in winter, you need to have serious cold water diving experience. I am not talking about < 20°C but <0°C. Although the water is constantly around 1-3°C, the air will freeze your gear in seconds.
* There is only one turn, that you can fail to take. If you do, you will end up in the nearby lake and that could be a problem if you're on your own since the lake is frozen in winter and the current will pull you far in.
* The national park does not allow diving deeper than 18m and prohibits diving in overhead compartments as well.

All the novice & experienced divers we take are happy to have a guide. The very experienced ones enjoy the fact that they are guided and thus have their head & hands free for their cameras.


I have written Blog articles about my dives in Silfra, Gardur and Kleifarvatn (in German but with pictures & videos).
(Please remove the links if unwanted or let me know & I'll remove them!)

Please let me know if you have further questions and also if you're coming to Iceland as I am here for the next 2 months

 

[mello-yellow]

I am planning to visit Reykjavik in August -- not specifically for diving, but would like to get in some dives. To be honest, I am not all that interested in Silfra -- at least not enough to pay the cost of a DIVE.IS tour. What does sound amazing are geothermal springs in Strytan and lake Kleifarvatn. An obvious drawback of Strytan is that it is 400 km from Reykjavik, but not an insurmountable one. Can you tell anything about either of these two locations? Is it possible to dive lake Kleifarvatn without a tour? Obviously I will not drag my own tanks from US, but what other equipment can or cannot be rented, and what are approximate prices?

For that matter, if I decide not to bother with tours at all, is there any shore diving in/around Reykjavik?

Thank you!

 

[zebroc]

Hi Mello,

official answer for Dive.IS is: We do not rent out equipment outside our tours.

I am not sure how other scuba shops in Iceland handle this, but I guess it is common practice.

Regardless of that, I think a 3-Day tour for Iceland would be a cool package for you, since it includes more than just Silfra. You dive lake Klaifarvatn, a geothermal lake and Gardur, a kelp forrest in the Atlantic. I did it in September 2014 and the tour was fantastic. There are other multi day tours as well and one of them includes the geothermal chimneys in the north.

I guess, as a DM you'd be more interested in just going diving with a local buddy here, so maybe you can find some locals in this forum or on facebook?

 

[reefseal]

Looking to do trip to dive Iceland this summer from Boston. Information on this thread helpful. Looking into flights, looks like WOW way to go vs. Iceland Air. Interested if anyone knows of any package deals with shops (includes accomodations, dive tours and possibly car..)