Sunday morning: bakery breakfast. We ordered so much food that we managed to again hit our $50 breakfast standard. Adam ordered pancakes, a cinnamon bun, and bacon and eggs. I had a croissant. I think I’m beginning to see the breakfast spending issue....😂
Well, that and a cappuccino is $6.
Have I mentioned how delicious the bread and butter is here? Come to Iceland for bread and butter. Seriously. Everything we do here is just filling the time between eating bread and butter. (Or if you are me, eating just butter is fine too.)
So you want to know why I went snorkeling in 20 degree weather in Iceland in January. Well guess what? I want to know too!!!
I watch the bucket list family and I think they are super cool so I looked up their video on Iceland and they went snorkeling at Silfra. From there, the idea stuck with me. I considered other options like an ice cave or glacier walk, but these packages were too long or too far away. We had to fill our days here doing something awesome and this seemed to be it!
Pick up from the hostel at 9:30am, we’re in a group of 8, 45 minute drive to the park. Amazingly, there are probably 10 other groups doing this too. So many crazy people. When we arrive, the guide, AJ, gives everyone a full body suit of warmth, basically like my hoodie footie pajamas but with no hood or feet. I put some of those hot pocket, warmer thingies in between my two layers of socks and hope that it will help to keep my toes warm. Next step is putting on the dry suit. This is much harder than it sounds. The dry suit is super tight and I had a good amount of trouble getting it over my bum. I was basically standing in front of Adam like a little kid while he kept trying to pull the suit up. The worst part...trying to fit my head through top. The neck hole is super small so that way water doesn’t seep in...I think this is why babies cry when they are born.
Result:
Then we waited. We had to wait for WAY too long. At first we waited in the van while other groups jumped in. Annoying but at least it was somewhat warm. I guess by warm I mean, not freezing. However, it was really hard to sit in the dry suit. I had trouble moving and I had to arrange myself so I could still breathe with my neck all constricted.
Fianlly we went out to wait on the dock. This was the worst part. The wind picked up and it was gusting so hard that the snow was blowing. There were two groups in front of us. Just as the first one goes in and the next group starts putting on their masks, a woman in the group ahead of us faints. I felt bad for her but also it was cold and we had to wait longer.
Our group got to skip ahead but then Adam and I were last in line so we had to stay back and wait some more. I was NOT a happy by this point. We were probably outside 30 minutes before actually snorkeling. Despite the hot packets in my socks, my toes were completely numb. The woman took a picture of us before we went into the water and I have such a puss face on that I can’t even post the photo but I assure you it is hilarious.
So finally we get into the water and it’s such a cool feeling. I can feel the pressure of the water around me but it’s not really cold because I’m not wet. The only part of me that’s wet and going numb are my hands. The head and hands are not covered by the dry suit, instead they are covered by a wet suit. I was super nervous about breathing through the snorkeling tube but it was surprisingly easy.
So there we are! The draw of this tour is the super clear water. We are swimming between the North American and Eurasian plates and technically in between two continents. You can see straight down to the bottom which at times is about 150 feet deep. The water is always about 35 degrees so actually winter is the better time to go because the water feels warmer than outside as opposed to the summer when the water is colder than outside. It was a great experience, but I can’t say that I wanted to stay in any longer than I had to.
I thought exiting the water would be the worst part. The wind had picked up and was blowing so much I thought I was going to get knocked over. But I wasn’t cold! My hands were completely numb and my lips were cold and swollen but my wet dry suit kept me toasty. I ran to the bathroom to run my hands under hot water but I got nervous about the water being so hot that I would burn my hands without feeling it. I turned it down to warm for a few minutes before heading to the changing room to remove the dry suit.
My hair was wet under my hat but my body was dry and warm. I snuggled under my jacket on the bus and rearranged my hot packets to warm my toes. It was somewhat exhilarating and finally cozy as we all gathered in the bus for hot chocolate and cookies.
But we did it! Snorkeling in Iceland in January—mission accomplished.
