Silfra Fissure
A rift between the North American and Eurasian plates, filled with glacial meltwater at 2 °C.
- Depth
- 7–18 m23–59 ft
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Entry
- Shore
- Typical current
- Light
- Coordinates
- 64°15.348′N 21°7.068′W
- Activities
- Scuba · Snorkelling · Freediving
Silfra is a crack in the earth at Þingvellir, filled with meltwater that has spent decades filtering through lava rock. The result is water so clear that divers report vertigo — visibility is over 100 m and the fissure walls are the only thing giving scale. It is 2 to 4 °C year round, so this is a drysuit dive and operators require a drysuit certification and logged drysuit dives. There is almost no life; the site is geology and clarity, and it is genuinely unlike anything else.
About 45 minutes by road from Reykjavík to Þingvellir National Park; entry by platform steps.
Best season
- Good
Before you get in
- A cavern — inside the daylight zone, but still with a ceiling, and with stretches where you cannot simply go up.
- A drift dive: you do not come back to where you went in, so boat pickup and an SMB are part of the plan rather than extras.
Taken from this site’s recorded depth, type and current, and nothing else. An empty list is not a safe site — the sea on the day, the local geography and the boat traffic are not in it. The briefing on the spot comes first.
Conditions
No live conditions for this site yet.
We only show numbers we can attribute to a source.
Marine life you may see
- Arctic charSalvelinus alpinusRare
From divers
What people who were in the water reported. Not a forecast, and not a judgement about whether the site is safe to dive.
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