DAY 1

Arriving at Kevlavik airport was a simple and efficient affair. For anyone who has gone on a diving trip to Sharm will know, diving trips seem to be fraught with baggage and passport issues, not here. Efficient, smooth and quick, probably 20 minutes (including the walk from the plane) and we were standing by the Hertz hire centre.

Richard, Julian' Brett, Pete at Manchester airport

Within a few minutes our car was sorted and Eric, our host, had arrived van and trailer in hand. The Hertz saga then began, more of that later.

Eric took us off to the first dive site (about 15 minutes from the airport). Kuagerdi on the Reykjanes peninsular in the province of Vatnsleysisstron (which means beachless coast). It more than lived up to its name. The coast is a jagged lave bed with rock that can slice through rubber. The coast drops down by 6 foot to the sea washed stony beach. Here the stone has been rounded off into pumice rocks of different sizes that line gullies of solid rock running into the bay.

It took a long while for everyone to be ready as kit had been misplaced, needed setting up or had been incorrectly delivered, but, after a couple of hours, Eric briefed us and we entered the sea.

It began with a long surface swim over a low lying dense kelp forest until the water was about 5 meters in depth. After the descent we swam through the kelp and eventually came out onto a sandy area. The sandy strips were interspersed with small rock layers covered in sparsely growing kelps. Turning back we surfaced at about the 5 meter mark and swam back to the shore. The incoming tide had by now filled up some of the gullies causing waves and a slight swell, which made for a difficult landing. A good first dive and plenty to talk about, particularly the abundance of Wolf Fish.

The two tour minibuses at the first dive site

Eric and Jonathan drying kit

Coast at the first dive site

Coast at dive site 1