Saint Nicholas Day
Pancake ice
Pancake ice at the Baltic coast near Kågnäsudden today.
Frost
Winter by the sea in a nutshell
Ingredients:
- Long underwear (with hood), socks, winter boots, gloves, ski pants, a warm down parka.
- A good digital camera, a wide angle lens, a tripod
- Some rocks, pancake ice and an ice covered rock with icicles. Spice it with a bit of weak ice to make it more interesting.
- A moon (almost full), some purple clouds (altostratus is best) and a pinch of polar lights.
Recipe:
- Put on the items of the first row.
- Take the items of the second row with you.
- Look for the items of the third row.
- Wait for the items of the fourth row and cool the scenery down to -14 °C for 45 minutes.
Voilà, bon appétit!
(Finding the items of the third row was really easy. It’s almost the same I paddled along through the ice half a day ago.)
Kayak – is it a boat or a sledge?
Today I was out and did some canoeing. There was a special reason for that: Johan from Sweet Earth wanted to make a short film about kayaking in wintry conditions for Skellefteå kommun, the municipality of Skellefteå. He asked me whether I wanted to be the canoeist and I accepted gladly. Since the weather forecast looked good for today we planned to make the film today.
And the weather was good – it was fantastic! When I woke up at 6 o’clock, the sky was still dark but starry and completely free of clouds. The thermometer showed -13.8 °C – the coldest temperature in Skelleftehamn this season. I was curious about Storgrundet, where it happened to be open water the day before. How would it look like today?
Some minutes later I stood on Storgrundet’s boat bridge and lit my strong flashlight. As almost excepted the water has completely frozen over last night and the rim of the new ice was about 3 cm thick. Too thick to break through with my kayak. Anyway, it could be less thick a bit farther away, I considered.
At 7 o’clock Johan arrived and we discussed the possibilities:
- Plan A: starting at the Lotsstation farther away, where there’s open water and probably no ice at all, but perhaps less motives.
- Plan B: trying to start at Storgrundet, where it might be impossible to kayak, but it would look nicer. And there would even be a Plan B2.
We decided for Plan A. I fetched the kayak from the garage and pulled it through the deep snow to the street where I put it onto the trolley. I pulled the kayak to the beach while Johan followed by car filming. Soon I arrived at Storgrundet’s parking place, but not Johan. Some minutes later my phone rang: Johan’s car got bogged down in the snow and he had to shovel it free. I returned to give him a push. Luckily his car was free soon again and we arrived at Storgrundet for sunrise.
I took off my winter anorak and slipped into my waterproof immersion suit – ugly but vital. I removed the kayak from the trolley and pulled it to the end of the boat bridge. Near the shore and round that boat bridge the ice was white, it was older and thicker. Some metres away it was transparent and you could see the sea bottom. That ice was less than 12 hours old. I positioned the kayak at the rim of the white ice that bore my weight and entered slowly the fresh ice. It took just some steps and – Splat! – the ice broke and I stood in chest deep water. Well, that came not unexpected. That’s why I had the waterproof suit on and my isdubbar round my neck.
“Isdubbar” or ice claws are sharp spikes with handles. These are attached to a cord to be worn round your neck. If you fall through the ice you can use the spikes of the ice claws to pull yourself out of the ice hole back to safety. A must have when going onto the ice in early winter or unknown terrain!
I managed to crawl onto the ice even without the ice claws, because the immersion suit has so much buoyancy. I put the kayak onto the little ice hole and climbed in. Unfortunately the kayak wasn’t heavy enough to break the ice. I tried and pushed, wiggled and jiggled until I managed to forge ahead perhaps ten meters. Anyway I only succeeded into bending down the fresh and soft ice, instead of breaking it. Since the paddle had zero grip on the wet ice I couldn’t steer at all and turning was completely impossible. Finally I gave up and pushed myself backwards with the glove protected hands.
When I came to the older and slightly higher ice I was kind of trapped. I couldn’t push myself backwards hard and fast enough to come up onto the safe ice surface. I tried several times and at last I just left the kayak – Splat! – went through the ice again, crawled onto the safe ice and dragged the kayak back to the boat bridge.
The result: Paddling on ice: round 25 m. Paddling in water: 0 m. Baths taken: 2. Photos taken: zero. I hope, that Johan filmed my abortive efforts. It will make me laugh watching it.
But as I said, there was Plan B2:
500 meters to the northwest the Baltic Sea is not in the lee of the island Storgrundet anymore. Here at the bay Flunderviken it usually takes much longer for the water to freeze over. While Johan had to take the save way on land I could go straight ahead by crossing the ice with my kayak in tow. First I had to plunge through soft ice and water again but then the ice was of the older and stronger kind and it was easy to get ahead. I knew, that Johan would be slower and I would had time to make some pictures.
Anyway even Plan B2 was in danger: Flunderviken was iced, too. At least I could see open water 100 or 150 meters ahead. Perhaps the ice would be weaker and I could go through the ice howsoever and reach open water. But first I had to wait for Johan who had to stomp through more than knee-deep snow to arrive. Time for another photo, time for going through the ice again, this time only knee-deep. Even here the ice was 3 cm thick – too thick to paddle.
Soon Johan arrived and I made my reservations. I didn’t believe in “ice-paddling” that far. Johan got an idea: Wouldn’t it possible to use the ice claws to push oneself forward? Well, I could try. The idea appeared to be brilliant. It was quite easy to push oneself forward, even it was hard work for my non-existing arm muscles. It went great until the ice got weaker and the kayak started to break it. Here it was hard to reach ice solid enough to pull oneself forward with the spikes. It took a long time and I had to take breath several times until I reached the last meters of the ice cover where ice was so thin that I could use the paddle again and finally I was free. Hip, hip, hooray!
Now I was able to paddle freely as on a warm summer day. Beside of the floating ice needles. Beside of wearing my heavy immersion suit. Beside of the snow that covered all shores. Beside of the ice crust on my kayak …
And beside of my exhaustion because of the struggles traversing the ice. Anyway I wasn’t here for a long tour but for being filmed. I didn’t want to get too far away from Johan who was landbound. Therefore I took just a short round and made some more photos before I started back.
I followed my old route where the ice already was cut and it was much easier to get ahead. Soon I reached the thicker ice – first still cracking under the weight of me and my kayak, then thick enough to bear us without any complaints – and then the shore where I had to plunge in into knee-deep water for the last time before I went ashore.
Conclusion
It was great fun testing out the limits of winter paddling in Skelleftehamn today. It won’t be the last time that I do such. However this is only possible with proper equipment. Without immersion suit or dry suit, isdubbar and such this tour wouldn’t have been possible at all.
So, folks: Be crazy and be safe!
And – as promised – the link to the video.
A bit of cold
Tomorrow I want to canoe. So I checked the potential starting points today. Where could I set in my kayak?
Näsgrundet
That’s where Skelleftehamn’s pilot station is. As expected the Baltic Sea is completely open. Here it would be possible to start the tour, but I had to go 2.5 km.
Killingörviken
The nearest place, only 600 metres away, but this small bay has been already ice-covered for some days.
Storgrundet
We’ll, this should rather be frozen over, too, but to my surprise there was a broad band of open water left. I guess that the water level, that changed several times the last days prevented parts of the water surface to freeze over. The distance to Storgrundet is 1.6 km and I think I’ll try out this place tomorrow.
Anyway I’m not completely sure, if there will be open water tomorrow in the morning, too. Today has been the first day, where the temperature dropped below -10 °C and maybe there will be ice on today’s open water tomorrow. Either a bit that cracks when you traverse it by kayak or a bit more making it impossible to squeeze through.
Seasons are a bit in between. The open sea is completely free of ice beside of some sheltered bays having a thin, but solid ice cover. When such an ice cover breaks in the waves, pancake ice is formed. Pancake ice are ice floes that move, twist and turn, scrubbing each other until they are round, like pancakes. I found some of them when I drove to the peninsula Rönnskär to have a look at the sundown. They floated in the sheltered boat harbour near the shore.
#snowember16 – part VI
This article is part of the series “2016-11: #snowember16”.
1. A tiny ski tour
As yesterday I took the car to the hill Bureberget, this time with skis and snowshoes. I had thought that the biggest challenge would be to park the car – not easy if there are only snow walls on the left and the right off the road, but I was lucky, a side road was cleared and I could park the car there in front of an old, wooden house buried in the snow.
I decided for the skis, changed shoes, put on gaiters, strapped the backpack on and put on my skis. After following the main road to Burvik a bit I bent left into the road to the top of Bureberget. The snow has settled a bit and was less high than yesterday. Soon I found a nice way downhills – my first “ski-run” this season, perhaps 20 seconds long. Of course I had to climb up again. That was partly not so easy between trees, rocks and quite soft snow where I sank down to my knees quite often even with the skis on. I found a steep but nice passage up that led me to some kind of bridge or ladder crossing a small ravine. This part I took without my skis …
After I had succeeded the “winter climbing challenge” I stood on a huge rock, almost up on the level of the top again. I took a detour to the forest and was soon back again.
This ski tour was quite short. One of the reasons was, that I didn’t find nice motive for photos today. It was very windy and all treetops were bare of snow. Many pine needles and pieces of bark lay on the snow which made the snow looking old and dirty, even if it was just one day old.
But anyway, it’s always great to be out and so it was today! And even better, when the sun comes out.
2. The coast of Storgrundet
When I was back in Skelleftehamn I didn’t drive home directly but to the coast of Storgrundet. I was curious how much ice would cover the part of the Baltic Sea between island and mainland. There’re still patches of open water, but most of the water is covered with ice. I guess that I have to look for other starting points, when I want to paddle kayak in the weekend.
It was only some degrees below zero but the strong winds made me shiver and I was very glad to had a warm down jacket with me and put the hood on tight. Brrr, autumn is definitely over.
Taking advantage of the sun
Yesterday I took the car and drove to Umeå. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. Sounds nice, right? Well, it was nice but hard to drive. The sun melted the frost on the asphalt and the wet street reflected the low hanging sunlight. Sometimes it was really hard to see anything other than just a glaring white nothing.
Today the sky was blue and the sun was shining again. Sounds nice, right? Today it was nice since Annika and I took a longer stroll through the forests near Strömback south from Umeå.
The temperatures were above zero, but parts of the ground were still frost covered. We followed a path between Tjuvvarpet – a lake – and Matsund – part of the Baltic Sea. Anyway you could see neither lake or sea from the path since the forest was too dense and hid the waters which were just 100 meters away.
On the way back we made a short rest at a place on the lake near the hill Tjuvvarpberget. Most of the lake was still free of ice but near the rocky shore you could see the first covering of ice. It almost looked a bit wintry.
Apropos winter: If the weather forecast is right we will get at least 30 cm of snow in Skelleftehamn within the next eight days. Nevertheless I’m quite sceptical. Just two centigrade warmer and it will all pour down as rain.
The first ice blanket
Seen today on the Ytterviksfjärden round about five kilometres from where I live.
Kayaking in the sunrise
“BING-BINGA-BINGA-BING-BING-BING-A-BINGA …!”
… yells the alarm on my mobile. I open my eyes, still partly caught in my dreams. Then I realise: It’s 5 o’clock in the morning and I’ve planned a paddle trip today. Out there it’s still pitch black and reluctantly I get up and get some breakfast. I’ve already packed the day before: dry suit – neoprene boots, gloves and hood – camera in a waterproof bag – water and chocolate. The compass and the live vest are already in the kayak. I leave, pulling my kayak behind on its trolley and the temperature is -4.5 °C – the coldest day since April. Round half an hour later I’m ready to start the tour. The sun hasn’t risen yet and some pink clouds hang in the blue sky.
At the sandy beach I drag the kayak into the water, lay the paddle on both the boat and the shallow ground to avoid tipping and climb in. I do some strokes, unfold the rudder that helps my steering the kayak and turn right. It’s low water and much more stones and rocks are visible as usual. I turn right again to paddle between the island Brambärsgrundet and the mainland. After that I turn left again and see the horizon and an archipelago of stones. I have to make my way through and more than once I hear the typical clicking sound, when the sea is so shallow, that the rudder at the rear touches ground and is lifted up.
The colours start to change: From light pink to something you could call apricot to warm orange. And then the sun starts to rise. It’s not that I’ve never seen sunrises before, but still I love to watch.
The sun rises a bit higher and starts to illuminate the colourful trees on the island Storgrundet which I’m approaching. Before I reach that island I turn right again and head to the open water. All I see in front of me is water, waves, the sky, clouds and midmost: the horizon. It looks like I just could paddle straight ahead to the horizon for ages. Probably it would take ages: it’s round 150 kilometres to the Finnish mainland.
So I turn left again and paddle along Storgrundets outer shoreline, go round the western peak and to the same beach were I started my tour one and a half hours before. A quite short, but pleasant kayak trip.
I go ashore and drag the kayak to the beach. It’s still below zero. The spray water on the kayak is frozen and there’s hoar frost on leaves and wood, especially in the shadowy places.
Now I exchange the dry suit for pants and jacket and the neoprene hood for a woollen cap. Dry suit and such is great for protection in case of falling into the cold water, but the “normal” clothes feel much more comfortable. I make a last photo of the beach and the island Storgrundet in the back, then I return home dragging the kayak behind.
At 9 o’clock I start my normal work.
“New Year’s resolution”: Be more outdoors in my everyday life, even if it’s short.