Snorkeling the Rift, Iceland
On my last night in Iceland I left Reykjavík for the Pingvellir national park to go snorkeling between the North American and European Plates. Last year, we’d done a Manta Swim Kona in Hawaii, so it was only fitting that we went some other place this time. It’s a surreal experience as you descend the stairs into the 2 degree water, protected by a dry suit. The clarity of the water is stunning. Granted that through the mask, which I brought after carefully reading a water sports full face masks review, the water appears a little muddled, you still would feel like you can see down forever. It’s glacial melt that has taken a very long time to trickle through volcanic rock, making it incredibly pure and clear. It also tastes absolutely delicious. I spent a good deal of the trip guzzling the water… then sputtering a bit as I tried to roll over and get my head back above water.
We snorkeled for about 30 minutes and then our guide took us to something he called the brain freeze – a cliff jump into the freezing cold water. It wasn’t particularly high but the thought of the water rushing into my neoprene hood made me nervous. To get myself to jump I had to repeat, “it’s just like jumping off a cliff in Bermuda, just like Bermuda”.
Contacting the cold water was such a rush I decided I had to go again. By this point I’d taken off my best heated gloves. This gave me a real feel for just how cold 2 degree water is. As soon as I came up for a breath my hands were already throbbing. I got out pretty quickly.
Today’s Photo: The rift, Iceland
As we approached the rift I’d spotted a waterfall tumbling into one of the many cracks in the Earth’s surface in this area so we went back there straight after getting our dry-suits off. A wooden pathway guided us there. On the way back I noticed another path, worn into the grass, leading to the cliff running alongside. I decided I had to climb it, which wasn’t easy carrying all my gear. In hindsight I’m not sure it was best idea in the world, particularly as getting down was even more difficult. At the top I found the giant crack in he surface of the Earth featured below.
I tried shooting this with my usual 7 exposures for when I’m using a tripod. However, due to the particularly high dynamic range of the scene, when I reviewed the results, I realised that I hadn’t captured the full range. So, I tried again by bracketing at -4,-2, and 0 and then again at 0, +2, and +4. This did the trick. When it came to processing I used the better of the two regular exposures and achieved the result below.
