Closing the bathing season in Skelleftehamn?
7 o’clock. The sun was still below the horizon but already colourised sky and sea at Storgrundet.
Some minutes later – looking into the opposite direction revealed another colour impression.
There was thin ice on this bay. It was partially broken. You may already guess, why. I’ll tell you.
I love bathing in the sea and this bay is my favourite beach and bathing place. In mid-August the water temperature had been 18 °C, in September it had fallen below 10 °C and this morning it was only around 0.7 °C.
Anyhow, time for another bath.
I undressed and started wading through the ice. First I stalked like a stork, than the water got deeper and thinner and I just walked normally, breaking the ice with my thighs.
Soon I reached both open water and swimming depth. I love bathing in cold water and think it’s invigorating and refreshing. Bathing before sunrise with these beautiful morning colours is an extra bonus.
After a bit of bathing and some swimming strokes I waded back to the beach. I already had expected cutting my legs at the sharp thin ice and so I did.
As long as the skin is cold, you hardly feel such scratches.
Being still wet I started freezing because the air was not warm neither. -9 °C the car thermometer had shown. Then the great moment came where I realised, that I had forgot to take a towel with me!
I dried myself a bit with my hands and slipped – wet as I was – into my clothes. And warm clothes it was!
This worked much better than expected and I decided to drive to the office directly. Arriving there only the tips of the socks felt a bit damp, the rest (outdoor pants and woollen sweater) felt warm and dry again.
Since the ice will get thicker and thicker every day I guess that this was the end of my bathing season 2019. At least at Storgrundet.
Some random comments
- It has been quite cold for late October the last days. In some parts of Finnish lapland temperatures had dropped below -25 °C.
- Later this morning I realised that I had got many more cuts and scratches from the ice than excepted.
- The definition of a winter bath is a bath in water colder than 10 °C. According this definition I took my first winter bath this season on 9 September. But it was today that I took my first ice bath of the season.
- While I am writing this blog article I realise that I had a roll of kitchen paper in my car. So I could have dried myself this morning.