A Minor Case of Hypothermia...

Upon returning from our diving experience I immediately emailed my dad.  He is an avid diver himself and it is actually very rare that I dive without him.  I think it has happened just a few times, all of which were when Ray and I were traveling: Oahu, Portugal, Galapagos and today.  He had also experienced a rather cold dive once so I knew he would understand what I went through.  His response is actually the title of the blog. “Oh my, what a tale!” he says, “I hope that proves to be your worst dive ever.  Sounds like you experienced at least a minor case of hypothermia.  The shakes are not a good thing to have.” Here’s the email I sent him: 

Hi Dad,

Just got back from diving the Silfra fissure today and what an

experience that was.  You know how you dove Titlow Beach in only a

wetsuit, well due to a drysuit malfunction, I've now done that in

Iceland.  Lucky me! 

To start, we got picked up by the Scuba Iceland minivan/bus right from our doorstep around 10am this morning. We drove in the pouring rain about 45 minutes to the dive site.  We pull into a small parking area with about 10-15 other buses, most of which were full of snorkelers. There were probably about 10 divers in total and only 5 in our group.  There was even a big truck labeled “Changing Area”. In between all the vans, were oversized picnic benches. In which all the equipment was laid out and prepared on.  We pretty much just sat in the van while the dive master and other staff members got everything ready for us.  The least amount of time we spent out in the cold, the better.  First they handed us a thick jumpsuit and thick socks to put on, kinda felt like an astronaut or snowmobiler at this point.  It was quite strange to be putting clothing on in order to do a dive, since usually we only have a bathing suit on under our wetsuits.  We then pulled on our dry suits with a little assistance from some baby powder. I still managed to struggle a bit, but this time it was getting my head through and not my feet and hands, go figure.  [For those of you that don't know, I always struggle when getting in and out of my suits, its just my curse I guess.]  It felt like I was being born again, squeezing through the tight seals.  But I made it!  Next we put on our weight vests which looked like something a firefighter would wear.  Boy was it heavy.  Next came the gloves, hood and then the tank.  I had to stand on my tip toes in order to reach the top of the benches in order to get my tank on.  When all was said and done, I had about 50-75 pounds of extra weight on and I could feel it.  Not to mention, it was definitely still raining, but on the plus side I couldn’t feel that at all through all my gear.  

Once ready, we had about a 200 ft walk to get to the stairs. We even had to cross a road, having cars stop to let us by.  Every step was hard at this point, I was extremely cautious, not wanting to lose my footing or trip, knowing quite well that I would be unable to catch myself if I did.  But we just kept trekking. We got to the dive site entrance and saw a couple of snorkeler groups in front of us making us have to wait for them to get in first.  We took a seat on the bench and I tried to calm my nerves.  I have to admit that I was a little nervous, being that I hadn't dove in over a year and had never been in a dry suit before.  The guy who drove up with us kept telling us the story of people's feet raising up over their heads due to the air in the suit, I was really hoping that wasn't going to happen to us.

Finally it was our turn.  We walked down the stairs and then was the moment of truth.  First foot in the water, nothing, I couldn't feel anything.   Second foot in

the water, same thing.  I was able to walk down all the way to chest level without really noticing that I was in the water.  It was such a strange experience.  It wasn’t until my hands went in did I feel it and it was “way brrr” [as my niece likes to say].  I was the first one in the water and to have my weight checked. I basically had to step off the platform and descend a few feet while the dive master watched.  I sunk without issue, I was a go! Ray was checked next and he was good to go too.  The other 3 guys in our group needed extra weight so we had to wait a few minutes longer for them to get there weight just right.  The water we were diving in was fresh water, which I actually don't think that I have ever dove in before.  It was straight from the glacier and pure enough to drink.  I didn't drink any of it, but Ray did and he said it was good. Oh and the temperature, as I'm sure you were wondering, was about 1-3 degrees celsius.  Anything but warm! But the visibility was tremendous.  You could see everything. It was actually almost clearer under the water due to the crazy rain and wind on the surface. 

Overall the dive was pretty unreal and lasted about 20-30 minutes.  No real wildlife, just crazy rocks,caves and a canyon.  I struggled immensely with my buoyancy, up then down, then up then down, pretty much the whole time. Couldn't quite figure it out.  The dive master mentioned that everyone has a hard time the first time they use a dive suit so that made me feel better.  The water was definitely cold, but tolerable in the beginning.  About halfway through the dive, I felt the sensation of a cold chill starting from my neck and slowly descending to my stomach and then to my legs.  I didn't think this was how it was supposed to

feel, but I didn't really know any different. At one point, I started to get really cold. Again, just thinking that this was normal.  Ultimately, I pushed through and made it to the end. I must admit that I was quite relieved when I saw the exit stairs appear in the distance.  I experienced tunnel vision like never before.  While everyone else was swimming around, enjoying the last few minutes of the dive, I swam straight to the stairs and climbed out.  Due to utter exhaustion and pure frigidness, the dive master had to help me take off my fins.  I couldn't even move because of the weight, not to mention that I couldn't really feel my feet much either.  I carefully walked up the stairs and then made the trek back to the van,

this time it was an even longer walk due to where we exited the water. I remember mentioning to Ray that I was really cold and he just brushed it off, thinking "Yeah, we're all cold".  It also felt like I was walking in puddles inside my drysuit.  It had also started raining pretty good and the wind had picked up, nearly knocking me over a few times on the way back. Every step was harder than the last and even though I was the first one out of the water, I was the last one back to the van.  

We finally make it back to the van and by now I was shaking pretty good.  I could see one of the guys we dove with was already chomping at the bit to get back in the water. Unfortunately, I knew I couldn't do another one because I was an icicle.  As soon as I said the word, the dive master helped pull off my suit.  Let's just say that there was a waterfall of water from inside my suit.  I was completely drenched, down to my core.  Everyone looked at me in utter shock.  I could read there minds, they were thinking "This isn't how its supposed to be".  And now I know that sensation I felt while in the water was the seal around my neck opening.  It took about an hour or so for me to warm up and I still get cold just thinking about it, but all in all, I am no worse for the wear.  I still have all my fingers and toes and I have successfully stopped shaking.  

But what a crazy experience I must say! And now I can officially say that I went scuba diving in Iceland in only a wetsuit!!

From,

Your chilly little icicle daughter

I wasn't able to take any pictures while under the water, but I think Ray has some videos.  Here are some pictures from the internet to give you an idea about what we saw. Feel free to google "Silfra diving" for more.  

Venturing to Vik

After a good/bad night’s sleep, hence the waking up at 1:30AM to write the last post, we got up nice and early to make it out of town on a day trip that Sarah had planned and wanted to do since we started talking about this trip.

We wanted to venture our way out of the city and into the country side. Down to the small town of Vik on the south coast of the country. Some friends of ours had mentioned it, I believe they actually got engaged on the beach there (Sara K., I think?). And since we had heard about it and seen pictures, we wanted to experience it for ourselves.

I will say there is something rather odd about waking up at 8:30AM and having it still be dark outside. It does help with the sleeping, but it’s a little weird because we don’t really have any sense of what time it is. We’re so thrown off from the travel, and then to only have like 5-6 hours of daylight makes sleeping relatively easy. But we wake up at 8 in the morning and it feels like 3AM since there’s no gauge on the sun coming up or anything like that.

Anyway, we get up, pack a lunch (a new found pleasure of ours) and head out. Side note, if you’re traveling and you want to get away from the touristy spots, try to find a grocery store, it’s always a fun experience, and the further from the city center the better. Oh, and the kid that checked us out at the register had on an LA Kings hat?? He didn’t know really much about the team, he just liked the hat, but still, small world.

So, we’re on our way out of town, and we’re looking to get a cup of coffee to start the day off on the right foot and wake up a little bit. Sarah sees that there’s a coffee shop off to our right, so we pull off into a shopping center parking lot. It doesn’t look too open, but we figure what the hell we’ll try it. So we park our car, the only one in the lot and walk inside. It’s a little eerie to walk into a closed shopping mall in a foreign country, but we walk in and look around. And there I see it down the hallway, a coffee cup on a sign with a guy standing there. Heading that way, we realize what we’re walking towards, Dunkin Donuts. It’s funny, for a country that doesn’t have McDonald’s or BurgerKing, they have Subways everywhere and Dunkin Donuts and Quiznos. I mean we don’t even have easy access to Dunkin in California?? Well, we start talking to the girl there and she’s giving us some short lessons in Icelandic. I picked up on Takk, which is Thanks. Please I can’t remember, but I do know that she said she doesn’t say it in Icelandic since it’s too long, she just says please. She also taught us how to say, have a good day, which was somewhat similar to guten tag, but for the life of me, I can’t remember that either. This language sure is difficult.

Now we continue on our way out to the country side. It’s a nice trip and there’s something refreshing about listening to a radio station and having no idea what they are talking about. We’re passing through small towns, and passing over mountains and the landscape is pretty amazing. We decided it’s as if Austria and Hawaii had a love child. It’s pretty crazy, volcanic landscape covered in grass and snow. It’s gloomy and rainy still, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.

And we’re just cruising down the two lane road. Then off in the distance I can see a mountain, and it’s got to be about 30-40 miles off. But on the side of it you can see a white streak. I looked at Sarah and commented that I bet that’s a water fall. And sure enough, we get closer and we see the signs for Seljalandsfoss, a well known waterfall on the Golden Ring.

It was definitely colder here that it was in the city. The wind was whipping up, and as you get closer to the falls you get caught in the mist. And it’s started sleeting while we were standing there. It’s beautiful and there are a bunch of other falls running next to the main one. When we hop in the car and continue our trip, we see the falls coming down off the side of the mountain. And there are constant falls every where you look coming down behind the picturesque farm houses on the country side.

We’re starting to figure it out. Keep driving down the road and you’ll either see the falls themselves, or you’ll see the tour buses pulling off to go where you need to go. So we get to the next major water fall, skogafoss. Again, beautiful, but freezing cold. We wander down to the front of it to see and it starts sleeting again. Turns out, at least I think, that the mist from the waterfall is freezing and causing the sleet near the falls as you get closer.

There’s also a stairway up the side so that you can get a view from the top of the falls. It’s a pretty good hike up, and as you climb the wind starts whipping up. But the views from the top are pretty spectacular.

A little Rainy

And on the way back to the car, Sarah found a friend that was apparently enjoying watching all the tourists freeze.

Back in the car, trying to find the real reason we ventured all this way, the black sand beach with the same style basalt columns that we saw at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.

Pull off the road following some cars, and there we see the signs. (Name of the beach), I don’t know that I would have known to find that name, but the sign for the “Black Sand Restaurant” should have clued us in.

No sooner did we park before Sarah was running down to the beach. It really is a beautiful place. It’s not really like any beach that we usually go to. It’s cold and there is no way to lay out and catch some sun. It’s rocky and the waves are huge and violent. In fact, I guess it’s the deadliest beach in all of Iceland. A tourist was killed in February of this year. There are waves known as “sneaker waves” that come out of no where. The guy was about 50ft from where the waves were breaking taking a picture when one came in and swept him out to sea. Pretty crazy. We saw a smaller version when Sarah was out taking a picture and a wave just kept coming, she ran all the way up the beach to avoid it.

The sun broke through a little, and we were enjoying the day. But as they say here, if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes. And sure enough, we were caught in the middle of a sleet and rain storm.

Once we make it all the way back to Reykjavik, it’s about a 2 and a half hour drive, we sat down for a minute then decided we wanted to go grab a bite to eat. So we wandered downtown. It really is funny. We can walk all over this town, but when we came back to it after our venture out, we both commented on how big of a city it is. I guess everything is relative. We walked back and forth across downtown about twice before we settled on Svarta Kiffa, which serves your choice of two soups in bread bowls. I was convinced it meant soup kitchen, but apparently it means Black Coffee same difference. It was pretty quality and just what we needed.

Then we decided that we wanted to find a local micro brewery so we headed to the other end of town and found Bryggin Brugghus. We tried some of their beer, a lager, a wheat and an IPA. All pretty tasty, although beer here is expensive. Three small tasters were $18. And the Micro bar, where we went next was $29 for 5 tasters. So $6 a taster, and about $15-$18 for a full pint, yeah, we aren’t getting sloppy here. WHOA.

Back to our place for the evening and attempting to get a decent night’s sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Never been dry suit diving, this should be interesting.

Kirkjur, Fossa og Fjörur

Our first day in Iceland was, to say the least, nothing short of amazing! Since we landed so early, by the time we got to the city, we still had the whole day to play.  The only dampening part was that it was raining, but we were determined to not let that get us down. We pop into Kaffitár for cup o' joe and to figure out our plan of attack.  It was there that I had the best chai latte that I have ever had before, wow just wow it was so good!!

From there, we trudged up the hill to see the unreal Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland's tallest church.  What a site! I just could not get over how cool this church was.  We had hoped to go inside, but unfortunately there was a funeral going on.  This just gives us an excuse to go back another time.  

We then made our way down to the serene Tjörnin.  We walked around the Fríkirkjan, another cute little church and stood in wonder of the lake or "pond" as locals refer to it.  

We even hung out with some of the locals who frequent the pond.  If it hadn't started raining pretty hard at this point, I think I could have stayed all day here. 

In the afternoon, we hopped in the car and decided to drive the "Golden Circle".  We were not planning on doing this today, but the guy at the rental car place mentioned that we should, so we figured "Why not?" We saw some amazing views and scenery of Iceland.  It was absolutely stunning. However, our jet lag started to rear its ugly head, forcing us to abandon our plans and head back to the city, before falling asleep at the wheel.


If you can't tell, I have an affinity for the Icelandic churches.

The next day, we made the drive down to the town of Vík, one of the places that I was really looking forward to going to.  Along the way, we passed some crazy views and of course had to stop at all the waterfalls.  

The first waterfall we happened upon was Seljalandsfoss.  It stands at about 197 feet high; quite impressive.  Being that the car thermometer read 1 degree celsius, we bundled up and walked up to the waterfall.  The closer we got, the more if began to sleet on us.  It was really, really cool, but also really, really cold! 

The next waterfall we found was Skógafoss, measuring 200 feet high and 82 feet wide.  There was a trail leading to the top of the falls that was just calling my name.  I think Ray looked at me like I was crazy when I said, "Alright, let's climb up".  Luckily, he is always up for my out-there ideas.

Views from the top. It was a little too cold to hang out for long... On the way back down, I spotted a cute, little fuzzy friend.  

Back in the car, next stop Reynisfjara, the Black Sand Beach, and Reynisdrangur, the sea stacks, of Vík.  We stumble upon a blue sign along the Ring Road and notice that a few cars were pulling off towards it in front of us.  We decided to join pull off too and luckily we did.  This sign pointed us straight to where we wanted to go. 

We continued to drive this little road all the way down until it dead ended right at the beach.  I couldn't even contain my excitement.  I jumped out of the car and started walking straight towards the basalt columns, leaving Ray in the dust.  

The columns were so cool, jutting out of the black sand.  Not nearly as big as the Giant's Causeway as far as width and scope, but it definitely was taller.  I could only climb up about 5-6 steps before not being able to go up any further.  While standing there in awe of this crazy phenomena, I turned to Ray and told him, "We need to make it a point to go see all the the basalt columns in the world!".  I thought there were only 5-10, but upon further research, there's probably close to 100 or more.  So maybe we won't make all of them, but at least try to see as many as we can. 

We continued to walk along the black beach and it was utterly majestic.  The sand was as dark as night, while the white water provided stark contrast as it rolled up on the shore.  And all the way at the end of the beach were the sea stacks, poking out of the water.  Legend has it that they were trolls who got caught out in the sun.  I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

As I stood, watching the waves for a few minutes, I could see how they churned and danced with every breath.  They were unpredictable, sometimes gentle and whispering up the shoreline, while other times they grew angry, rushing to the shore as tempestuous and frantic as they could.  And then, suddenly a "sneaker wave" would come out of nowhere, surprising any unsuspecting passerby.  One actually snuck up on me; fortunately he was a small one and would have only attacked my ankles if I hadn't notice him.  But unfortunately for others, they were bigger and faster, ultimately dragging them to their death, yikes!! I wonder if any of the crosses at Víkurkirkja (the church in Vík) are from any of those less fortunate.

The drive back to Reykjavik consisted of numerous glacier sightings.  Not something this California girl sees everyday.  

That night we walked around Reykjavik for awhile trying to figure out where we wanted to eat for dinner.  We settled on Svarta Kaffi, a cute little place that served soup in a bread bowl and beer.  What could be better? That being said, they only served 2 types of soup per night. Tonight happened to be Asparagus or mexican meat.  Ass-per-gas for me and Ray had the meats.  Also, my first beer in Iceland proved to be a good one too, a Borg NR.3 Úlfur IPA.

 After dinner, we hit up a few more craft breweries to sample the local flavors.  We made a stop at Bryggjan Brugghús and MicroBar for a flight.

If you've been following us since the beginning of our blog, you'll know how we like to make up our own titles for statues that we see.  I called this one "Man on Horse on Rock with Stick and Dinner Plate"