Blog 39 - Iceland The flight to Iceland was not too bad, but with the time difference and all it was very exhausting. It only took 5 hours to get there, but the time difference was 5 hours as well, so I had only about 2 hours of sleep @ the plane that night. At the airport, before the flight, I met Jim. Jim is an American photographer and was going on a course in Iceland. We had a nice chat and I was going to see him later that week. We arrived @ 6 am in the morning and the first bus to Reykjavik left @ 8 am, so I had a bit of time to kill… I actually didn't go to Reykjavikstraight away: I was going to dive into the Blue Lagoon first! No, not the one I snorkelled in in Fiji, but the one in Iceland, with the 'healing' minerals that are great for your skin (so they say), but very bad for your hair (as I experienced it :-( ) Anyway, the Blue Lagoon was very nice: the water was warm, the massage waterfall was my favourite and the sauna and steam bath were also very nice! 5 hours later I took the bus to Reykjavik and went to my couch surf place! The hostess Sabrina, wasn't home, but another couch surfer was and she explained me how the internet worked and that was kind of all I needed then. When she left, I met the French people: 2 girls, one guy, they stayed in a room upstairs and I could join them, so I did. I went to bed… was so tired. So I slept from 4pm-10pm and then again from 12am-1pm… pretty bad! So the Sunday was nearly over when I woke up, but it was all good. Didn't do toomuch: Sunday is a rest day right?! On Monday, Pon (a guy from Taiwan) and I borrowed Sabrina's car and did the 'golden Circle' together, what means that we (I) drove the car to see: Thingveiller National Park (where the first parliament was), The Geysir (biggest one only goes of once or twice a year and is about 200 ft high, but the second biggest one there: Strokkur, goed of every 5 minutes and is 60-100 ft high). After that we went to see the Gullfoss - Golden Falls: a beautiful waterfall: 105 ft double cascade, Europe's largest waterfall! And last but not least 'Kerio', a colourful, explosive volcanic crater. And all of that in less then 6 hours!! We had a bit of trouble leaving though! Sabrina asked us to get some oil for the car, so we asked at the service station to help us, but the man checked the transmission oil, thinking it was the motor oil… So he put way too much motor oil in there and when he found out he made a mistake, he send us of somewhere else, so they could take the oil back out… 6 liters!! Then we got some transmission oil and we were ready to go… 45 minutes later… So the 'Golden Circle' was beautiful (see pic's)…. Especially when we drove back with the sunset (that lasted sooo long) and the fog that came up… it was amazing. We were back around 11pm and I had a good night sleep! The next day I slept in (holidays!) and in the afternoon I went puffin and whale watching. It was a beautiful day: nice and sunny, so a good day to be on a boat. The whole trip lasted about 3,5 hrs, so that was pretty good. We saw lots of minky whales! It was again amazing. They didn't do the great stunts like the whales in Sydney though… On Wednesday I went to the National Museum if Iceland with Fouley (a frenchie) and I walked around in town, went to the big shopping centre (without buying anything) and had dinner at a nice cheap vegetarian restaurant in town. Funny thing was that out of 6 tables (that were taken), 3 of them were taken by Dutch people! What does that say about Dutch people?? Thursday I did something really special: I went diving in the Silfra crack, Thingvellir Lake, National Park Thingvellir, Iceland:
The dive between the continents!

The SILFRA Rift is an absolute world class dive site due to two main reasons.
First of all you will be diving in a crack between the American and Eurasian continents.
It's the place where the continental plates meet and drift apart about 2cm per year. Secondly the visibility that you will experience will rarely be surpassed, if ever. 100m+! The reasons for this clarity are twofold: the water is cold ( 2°C - 4°C all year ) since it's the melting water from a glacier about 50km away and has traveled through the lava fields for many years before coming out at the north end of Thingvellir lake through underground wells.

The Silfra water is as pristine as water can get and you can drink it at anytime during the dives, as I did obviously!
The National Park Thingvellir has been declared a WORLD HERITAGE SITE by UNESCO, both for its cultural & historical significanceas well as natural & geological uniqueness.
Depending on your preference Silfra Cathedral and Silfra Lagoon can be dived (we did both)

For skilled & experienced divers Silfra offers cavern, cave and deep diving as well. We didn't go really deep (18 meters max as I'm allowed to do with my open water qualification), but we did do the caves and all!!!
The first dive will start from a platform where some steps bring us into the water. Depending on skill and gusto, the dive with a maximum depth of 18 meters can be done in different variations. A mild current, caused by the underground wells, starts us drifting through the crack. Use this opportunity and look up and see the landscape outside through the surface. In other parts of the dive - see the underwater scenery mirror from the surface as if you were diving through a tunnel.
Did I hear Fish? No, not really in the crack, ... well, maybe little ones ... sometimes ..., however, there are plenty of fish in the lake :brown trout, Arctic charr and the three-spine stickleback) and it is very popular for trout fishing.
As we approach the end of the crack before it feathers out into the lake, we turn around and dive through the cathedral one third of the way back, where we exit.
On the second dive we will pay the Silfra Lagoon a visit. It is approx. 120m in diameter and shallow (max. 5m) So clear we can see straight through to the other end. In the second part of this dive we will look a bit around in the crack, where it is possible to do some fantastic swim-throughs under huge rocks that fell into the crack many years ago.

There were 6 divers in total: an older couple and a men with his 2 sons (and me). We split in 2 groups for the first dive, but the older couple didn't do the second one and the man and sons were very experienced, so we did a more difficult dive the second time. Lucky me!! So we did some swim-throughs and caves! It was awesome! The owater is so blue and beautiful and the view is amazing. This was definitely the highlight of Iceland. I uploaded some movies on my youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAc4BXaTXf8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCf0RKkM0mg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gesx8tK--mI

I was pretty knocked out after two dives in 2 degrees water in a drysuit, so didn't do much that evening…

So on Friday, my last day… my surfboards arrived in the Netherlands! I hope they've survived the Texas trip: I'll find out soon enough… American Airlines think they can make me feel happy about the whole situation by sending me some discount vouchers… seriously!!! I need to go back to Iceland for surfing… they kind of made my stay here quite an expensive one, cause surfing is free and now I did all other (great) activities that were not that cheap… and I would have loved to go surfing here… that was the whole purpose of my trip and they can just not seem to understand that… So I tried to explain in my email: 'it's like a winter sport holiday without a snowboards/ ski's, like a hiking holiday with a broken leg, etc… I wonder what their response will be like…

My last day… I did want to do a last kind of activity, so I went horse riding!!

Now, the only time I sat on a horse was when I was 6 years old in the Efteling (amusement park in the Netherlands), so that's a long time ago… but… when we were riding and we were divided into 2 groups (slow and fast), I did go in the fast group… I asked.. 'do you have good balance', was the question… 'I surf and do yoga', was my answer :-) So I did do the tilting and even went in gallop!! That was pretty cool! My horse Massi was a bit crazy (like me) and very hungry, but very sweet as well: we made a great couple! We were riding through lava fields andacross beautiful hillsides.

In the evening I met up with Jim and all the other people from his course. They all had dinner together and were speeching about each other and their amazing trip through Iceland. One man said: on Sunday (2 days from now) I will feel empty… And that kind of made me cry… I will feel empty on Sunday… Tomorrow I will fly home, hug my family and friends, have a surf, beach party in the evening… and then on Sunday I'll wake up and I'll feel empty… I'll miss all the amazing people I met during my trip. I already do, but I will even more when I'm home… The whole trip will be like a dream… and it'll be like I've just woken up…

So please… let's keep in touch, come and visit me… I'll save some money (after paying of my debts) to visit you and you'll be in my heart…

Yes, you'll be in my heart
From this day on

Now and forever more
You'll be in my heart
No matter what they say
You'll be here in my heart
Always…. Always….

Thanks to all of you who made my trip unforgettable… I love you, xxxx