I’ve dived in one of Iceland’s active volcanoes.  It wasn’t erupting at the time, you understand, and no planes were grounded for our dive, but it was most definitely active. There was snow around the edges but the water was warm and clear, chemical blue.  I’ve never seen water that colour anwhere else.  We swam afterwards in a pool next to the main crater lake and that was steaming yellow and smelt of sulphur, hinting of subterranean goings on.  Somehow sulphur sounds better than rotten eggs, doesn’t it?  The volcano was Askja, not Eyjafjallojoekull which has reawoken after almost 200 years.

Our dive was one of my highlights of an expedition to Iceland in the early 1980’s. Continue reading →