Today was a day of icy refreshment! I started the day by making my way to a nearby hotel lobby to be picked up for my snorkel session. They had a sign offering to wake you up for the Northern Lights if you wanted them to. I thought that was a pretty neat idea.
Then I got into a van and we started our super long journey out to Thingvellir, which is a national park between two tectonic plates. The area we were diving in was actually the outflow of a melting glacier, so the water was around 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Here is a picture of the start of the diving area, and yes, that is snow on the ground.
The snorkeling itself was rather fun, although a little short... we were only in the water about 15 minutes.
Which, for a 5 hour commitment was a little brief... but given how cold the water was, and how much my ankles didn't enjoy supporting giant flippers, I was glad to be done. I think we probably spent about 1.5 hours driving each way, and then around 45 minutes putting on or taking off the dry suits. It was quite an ordeal, but also rather fun. They have an actual SCUBA session they offer as well, but the area we went through didn't have anything too deep in it, so they really wouldn't have been able to see much more than we could. The water, being glacial runoff, is incredibly clear, since there is no sediment in it, and it's so cold that nothing lives in it, so there isn't any biocontaminate.
After I got back to Reykjavik, I bought a "city pass" because it included a bunch of things I wanted to check out, as well admittance to the city buses. I decided to check out the Viking museum, which was not included in the city pass... but then decided I didn't want to pay the somewhat high price of admission. So instead I hung out in their gift shop and tried on a variety of hats:
Then I made my way to the Maritime Museum, which *was* included in the price of the city pass, which was interesting.
Although it the experience was somewhat spoiled by the quality and breadth of the Maritime Museum I saw in London a few days ago.
Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to take a "historical boat tour" of the harbor, and then I'll finally be getting on a plane home!
