In 1997, Erlendur Bogason discovered a hydrothermal vent in the dark water of the Eyla Fjord, located near to the town of Akureyri. With the air temperature hovering close to 10 degrees Fahrenheit, this dive was quite comfortable! Although the water is quite shallow, never reaching more than 5 or 6 feet in depth, the warm, clear water, the unique phenomenon of hot water emerging from the bottom and the occasional encounter with the large trout that make their home here make this a worthwhile visit.
With depths never exceeding more than 30 feet, dive times here are limited by your air supply and your tolerance for the cold.Īfter a dive at Nesgjá, an interesting option is to visit the nearby site known as Litla Á. Here, we dove in 63-degree (f) water, which emerges from various spots along the bottom like so many miniature geysers.
We wound our way through the length of the crack, and then emerged into a lagoon of equally clear water. Although there is no marine life to speak of, the dramatic rock formations and crystalline water make for a truly memorable experience. Our dives at Nesgjá took us through a winding corridor of boulders, created through a slow but jarring ripping apart of the Earth’s crust. The Strytan dive site viewed from our zodiac. The ferocious-looking but harmless Wolf fish. Iceland, the land of fire and ice, has much to offer.Ĭold water nudibranchs can be found at Strytan. Perhaps most notable is the unique and precious dive site known as Strytan, the only known collection of hydrothermal vents reachable in diveable depths. While there are tons of great things to do in Iceland for non-divers, along the coasts, myriad diving opportunities exist in and around the many fjords and divers can delight in healthy populations of marine life. In some areas, cracks in the Earth’s crust have flooded with lava filtered glacial melt water, making for unparalleled diving opportunities in crystal clear water with almost unlimited visibility. Indeed, the mid-Atlantic ridge goes right through the center of Iceland, where volcanoes rise and the North American and Eurasian continental plates are ripping apart. Geologically and volcanically active, the land is scarred from recent lava flows and contorted and twisted by the spreading of the earth. Instantly, we were transported to a new world… After suiting up atop a small snow covered hill we made our way on foot through the snow towards the foreboding water, carefully selected a point of entry and proceeded to jump into the 34-degree (f) water. We left the small fishing village of Hjalteyri, located 22 km north of Akureyri, earlier in the day and upon approaching the dive site immediately realized that this was frontier-style diving. The destination was Nesgjá, a recently discovered “crack” in the Earth’s surface, flooded with crystal clear water and home to some of the most awe-inspiring geological formations a diver will ever encounter. 50 MPH winds, blinding snow and frigid temperatures? What did we expect? We were, after all, driving along the northern coast of Iceland at the end of winter. Well, it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise.
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