Areas of water Dec 3 2015

There’s a lot of water round Skelleftehamn. North and east lies the Baltic Sea, in the west and south runs the river Skellefteälven and in the forests around there are some lakes such as the one kilometre long Snesviken.

As several times before, winter came when I left the country for a visit in Germany. That figures! But it didn’t last long. In my absence Skelleftehamn got 20 – 30 cm snow and one cold day with a minimum of -12.9 °C. Then it got warmer again and rain melted away most of the snow. Since I came back on sunday it snowed a bit with temperatures round 0 °C.

Today I was curious, how much ice would lay on the waters. First I checked the Baltic Sea round the peninsula Näsgrundet. The water still was completely open. The same at the small boat harbour Tjuvkistan.

Next stop: Sundgrundsbron, a bridge crossing the Skellefteälven which is round 700 meters wide at that place. The eastern part – the mouth of the river – was almost completely open too, with some thin ice at the riversides, while larger areas of the river itself in the west were covered with ice.

Next stop: Rudtjärnen, a smaller lake in the forest nearby. It might look like waves, but the lake is completely iced, as well as the larger Snesviken.

Rudtjärnen – completely covered with ice

Next stop: Storgrundet, which is both an elongated island and a small sandy beach. The Baltic Sea between island and main land is sheltered from wind and freezes over quite early. Round three-quarters of the water were iced too.

I would love to paddle at least one more time before the ice becomes too thick, but I’m afraid that I have to look for another starting point as my favourite Storgrundet.

And then I’m longing for cold weather that freezes over the Baltic Sea so that it’s possible to go or to ski to the islands.

Winter journey in a nutshell Nov 19 2015

It snowed in Skelleftehamn tonight. It’s hardly a secret, that I love winter, snow and coldness. In Skelleftehamn however it would be too warm, because the Baltic Sea is near.

Therefore I decided yesterday to take a day off today, take camera and car and travel towards winter. In the inland the climate is colder and hopefully there would be more snow. I started at 6:45 in darkness. The first part was no fun to drive. Road salt is used on the big road to Skellefteå and the road further west. With temperatures slightly below zero you always have a film of muddy saltwater on your windscreen while the wipers still are partly frozen and will not work properly. That in combination with approaching cars with bright lights makes it hard to see and much concentration is needed.

That instantly got better when I left the big road 95 (that would bring me to Bodø in Norway) right after Jörn. The smaller roads are covered with ice and hard snow – much easier to drive and the windscreen stays clear. And it looks much more like winter than a wet road. And while in Skelleftehamn even the duck pond is open, here the lakes and some small streams are ice and snow covered.

I continued the road and drove to Storklinten, a small ski hill. Well, it wasn’t so interesting yet with only round about 10 cm snow, but the lake nearby – Lill-Klintträsket – was really nice. It started snowing and the tree covered hills farther away seemed to vanish into a white nothing.

The way to Storklinten is a dead-end road and I had to return. I continued the larger road to Myrheden looking for motives. And I found one. The small river Ålsån:

I was glad I had my chest waders with me, so I could come quite near to the motive. And there were a lot of motives this day. For example reindeers. The first small flock was extremely shy and cautious. It didn’t dare to pass my car and left the road starring at me suspiciously from behind the small trees. You can see that they digged for food in the snow, the noses are snow covered and one of the reindeers even had a twig hanging in its antlers.

Further on the road: Town signs with funny looking names (there was even a village called Hej, which is Swedish for hello), more snow covered roads and trees and two extremely well educated reindeers going beside the road in single file.

I’m looking for motive especially, where there are crash barriers beside of the road – there the street will probably cross a river or a creek. Some of them are open, many broader ones with less current are already covered with ice. And on one of them – far away – I could see a reddish animal and some dark spots. A fox? Birds? I looked for the next parking opportunity – sometimes a real challenge – and walked back.

I was right: There was a fox. And some kind of skeleton, perhaps a roe deer or a reindeer. And some crows. And an eagle! It doesn’t happen often, that I see eagles nearby where I live. I made some photos with my tele lens. Zooming in I could even see some magpies hopping around hoping for a snack. The scene was much too far away to get good pictures, but anyway, I want to show you this one:

After a while I started to get hungry. My car too; the red R-lamp has been glowing for a while. Anyway, the town Arvidsjaur, todays destination, was not so far away anymore. As people in former days first fed their horses before eating themselves I first tanked my car with E95, then myself with beef, mashed potato, mushroom sauce and salad. Then I looked around in the city which I think is really nice. Especially in winter with snow – round 20 cm today.

Even if the “real winter” is not here yet the days are already quite short: Sunset in Arvidsjaur was a quarter past two! At three o’clock I started to use the car’s full beam, half an hour later it was quite dark. Time to head home. I couldn’t see any motives any longer and I navigated to the main road. Now driving became exhausting again for a while since it started to snow quite heavily. And if you use full beam while snowing you just see a tunnel of snow flakes swooshing towards you. It’s a big like old televisions science fiction series, when the spaceships activated their warp-drives. And as in space there is no up or down. The second photo may give you a faint idea.

Luckily the snow shower ended soon and the rest of the trip was just about coming home.

400 km and 500 meters – 11 hours 30 minutes – a straining but great one day trip winterwards.

Back again in Skelleftehamn: Snow is gone, it’s pitch black and it’s raining cats and dogs.

Another small step winterwards Nov 12 2015

Today was the first day, where the maximum temperature almost was below zero, in Skelleftehamn the maximum was +0.1 °C. Although it was below zero most of the time it drizzled and mizzled from the low-hanging clouds which made the ground really slippery.

But later, when I looked through the window round 7 o’clock I could see the road being covered with a ultra-thin layer of white. Snow or ice dust – I wasn’t sure. But even this half millimeter is enough to reflect the street lights and to lighten up street and front yard.

When I went outside I could see some scattered snowflakes falling down. I know, it’s nothing and it will melt tomorrow, but anyway – it’s the very first snow of the season in Skelleftehamn. And although it’s hardly below zero, the small boat harbour killingörviken starts to freeze over.

Another aurora Nov 9 2015

I cannot remember a year with so much Northern Lights as this year. Since August I saw them at least 20 times, if not even more often. Today the forecast was quite good and when I saw the first pale aurora at 22:30 I drove to the beach. The Northern Lights covered half the sky but were quite weak. But after a while they became stronger.

For a short time they were very strong, but I was too slow with the camera. I didn’t catch the two bright shooting stars neither, but if was beautiful to see them. As beautiful as the aurora weakening again but then flickering very fast over half of the sky – like dancing a secret dance too swift to follow. Unphotographable – you have to come, be lucky and have a look by yourself.

Click the image for a better quality – the computer-calculated preview is quite bad.

A foggy day in Skelleftehamn Nov 7 2015

Strange skies Nov 3 2015

Three days ago Aurora Alerts by Soft Serve News showed a forecast for very strong polar lights, first for last night, than for tonight.

That’s why I took camera and tripod with me when I drove to the rehearsal with the Chamber Choir. When we had finished and I left the building it was cloudy – as expected – but you could see the green light of a quite strong aurora shining through the spots were clouds were less dense.

I hoped for the sky to clear up and drove to Långhällan – a favourite place at the seaside. Unfortunately however the sky hardly cleared up and finally the clouds became even denser. Suddenly I could spot a bright red light at the horizon. Is it a strong spotlight of a ship? But why is it so red? It took a minute until I realised that it’s really the moon rising above the horizon. I cannot remember seeing the moon in such an extreme red colour – even redder than at the total lunar eclipse five weeks ago.

The next photo is a bit special. It is much more edited than I use to edit photos to show the colder green colours of the Northern lights behind the clouds and the warm, now bright orange colour of the moon. I lit the foreground with a flashlight to make it visible. Not very easy to light it evenly without overexposing it. Even here I had to edit some spots that were too bright or too dark.

There may be less clouds at 4 or 5 o’clock. Ant perhaps still polar lights. But I guess I’ll be sound asleep … .

Good morning, 3. November Nov 3 2015

Freezing over – day three Oct 31 2015

A picture from yesterday where the morning was as cold as the day before. This will close the little series about ice on the Baltic Sea because today morning it was more than 10 °C warmer and hardly any ice was left. Tomorrow it all will be gone until it starts to get cold again.

Freezing over – day two Oct 29 2015

Another chilly morning, with -7 °C it was the coldest in Skelleftehamn this season. Again I woke up quite early and took a tour to Storgrundet. There lay more ice on the sea than yesterday and you could see that it was partly ice floes that froze together the night before. However, the beautiful ice rim that I photographed yesterday was gone.

I made a short stop at the lake Snesviken, that is round about one kilometer long. Since we had only two frosty nights after a longer warm period with day temperatures above 10 °C, I was sure that the lake was completely open with perhaps a bit of ice at the shore.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I realised that almost the whole lake was covered with ice – after only two frosty nights. Incredible how fast it goes!

Snesviken – already ice covered after two frosty nights.

This evening I had a meeting in Ursviken at the Kanotudden – the canoe bay, where the canoe club has its location. This bay is part of the Skellefte River and it starts to freeze over, too. I really like the clubhouse. It’s a pity that it’s hardly used in winter time – it would be the perfect location for a public winter bath site!

Late October sunrise Oct 28 2015

Even after switching to standard time you don’t have to stand up extremely early to catch the sunrise over the Baltic Sea. Sunrise today was 7:06 and since I already was awake I took the car to the shore. Sky was clear and illuminated in warm orange colours while the open sea was of a deep blue. A nice contrast and since there ware hardly any clouds the photo has some kind of an abstract look. When the sun came – click – I made this photo:

After two warmer weeks it was chilly this morning with temperatures round -5 °C. Of course the sea is still open, but the water puddles on the waterfront were covered with ice.

Did I say “of course sea is still open”? Well, not everywhere! After making the photos above I drove to the little beach Storgrundet where I saw the first thin layer of ice lying on the cold sea water. (The photo itself is far apart from being good – I’ll try to make better ones tomorrow morning if it’s as cold as today.)