I’ve never really been a fan of diving. Even though my birthright as a Caribbean islander would suggest swimming through sunken Spanish galleon wrecks.

I’ve always been more of a snorkeler. I like the bird’s eye view of the underwater world below my floating self. In other words, I’d rather swim above sharks and giant manta rays than with them.

However, there is one dive sight that is making me rethink my whole aversion to diving: the mystical Silfra Rift in Thingvellir, Iceland.

The National Park Thingvellir has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, both for its cultural and historical significance as well as natural and geological uniqueness.

It is a dive in the most pure crystallized water I have seen in my life. When I first observed this majestic water, I was shivering with chatting teeth and mildly frostbitten toes and yet I had to suppress the urge to jump in. It just has a hypnotic vibration transmitted through its pristine aura.

I had no idea people actually swam there and much less that it is a world-class dive sight. The dive is actually in a crack between the American and Eurasian continents. It’s the place where the continental plates meet and drift apart about two centimeters per year. That’s a mind trip in itself.

The visibility is unsurpassable because the cold water (2°C-4°C all year) is actually melting water from a glacier about 50 kilometers away that has traveled through the lava fields for many years before coming out at the north end of Thingvellir lake through underground wells.

What a mind-boggling experience to swim through a rift along glacial water. And to add another mind-altering sprinkle, it is an opportunity to see the landscape outside through the water’s surface.

Another possibility is pretending you’re a seal doing some fantastic swimming through and under huge rocks that fell into the crack many years ago. For skilled and experienced divers Silfra offers cavern, cave and deep diving as well.

Unfortunately there are no friendly aquatic creatures to encounter. But no fish means that there is nothing higher up in the food chain lurking in between the tectonic cracks, which suits the scardey cat in me just fine.

Alexandra Hertell – alexandrahertell@gmail.com