The right timing for a small winter kayak tour Apr 7 2024

Friday afternoon

Yesterday Annika and I took a winter bath in the ice free bay Vitskärsudden, now it is snowing and the wind has blown back a lot of ice floes. Too unstable too walk on, too thick to paddle through. How shall we paddle kayak tomorrow under these conditions?

Saturday

In the morning the sun is shining and the ice floes are gone. I walk to the ice edge that is round about 200 metres from shore. The ice is stable. After breakfast Annika and I dress properly (warm clothes, dry suit, life jacket) and drag our kayaks to the ice edge.

We get into our kayaks on the ice and then hop into the water. Then we turn right and are calmly paddling following the coastal line to the bay Vitskärsudden. First we navigate through some larger ice floes and the usual rocks (our “underwater archipelago”). When we enter the bay a layer of fresh ice is in front of us. It is so thin, that we can paddle through it effortlessly. The sounds of the braking ice are fascinating.

We are not alone. Three other kayakers are further out while other people are taking a walk ashore. One of them took a photo that we found on Facebook:

Annika and on tour seen from land (Photo credits: tbd)

After we paddle back we build up momentum and paddle right onto the shallow ice shield. We already can see our house – shortly later we are there, longing for a shower.

In the evening the wind has turned and ice floes are drifting back ashore.

Sunday (today)

Did we have calm weather yesterday? Well, not today. The wind is pretty strong and wet snow and sleet is falling from a white-grey sky. The horizon is hidden in the fog.

I take a promenade to Vitskärsudden again. The wind has filled the whole bay with small and large ice floes that wobble in the waves.

I am walking along the ice covered coastal line until I come to the open sea. Here the waves are throwing water, slush and ice ashore so that the shore is covered by metre high ice walls. This view is impressive, pretty arctic and also a bit frightening.

The waves are high and break early. It’s hardly imaginable that Annika and I had a fine and calm kayak tour yesterday. Good timing!

I have five other days in Obbola before I’ll head back to Tromsø. I’m quite curious whether I’m able to take another kayak tour. But today the weather looks quite promising.

First kayaking 2024 Apr 3 2024

Today I took my first kayak tour in 2024. It was much too windy to do a longer tour (and proper photos) and my walking distance was larger then my paddling efforts but hey, at least I was outside. Now I’m eager to kayak more.

Re-frozen crack (morning temperature: -9.5 °C)

Welcome, open sea Apr 2 2024

When the plane flew above the Baltic Sea shortly before I landed in Umeå nine days ago I realised that it might take time, until I can paddle kayak. The whole sea by the coast was covered with ice.

Even yesterday the open sea was round about a kilometre away from shore. Then it got windy.

When I woke up this morning a lot of the sea ice had gone and I spotted the open water right behind the little islet Lillskär. I put on my waterproof survival suit and went there. The ice between the shore and the island was still solid.

Behind the island was a strip of ice with long cracks. I went to the edge to take some photos.

When I turned around I realised that one of the cracks – seen on the second photo above –has become broader, close to a metre. I preferred swimming the metre to jumping because the ice was slippery. Minutes later the ice floes were drifting away from land and then south. Good bye!

As soon as the wind dies down I want to take the first kayak tour of the year. The weather forecast here is not the best so I’ll have to wait and look.

Polarstern in Tromsø Jul 31 2023

Last month I joined a scientific cruise on the Norwegian icebreaker Kronprins Haakon. Our plan was to reach station 01 at 84.55° N, 18.78° E north of Svalbard. But the exceptionally thick sea ice of 2 metres and more prevented this. We tried to get north but in vain, we only reached 80° N and a bit.

We were not alone. The Swedish icebreaker Oden and the German icebreaker Polarstern had the same issues. In the night from the 11 to 12 June we were quite near to the Polarstern – less than 10 nm if I remember correctly. The vessel was visible on the “OLEX” navigation screen.

11 June 22:18: Polarstern on the navigation display

After another five week expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, the Greenland Shelf and the Nansen Basin the Polarstern arrived in Tromsø today. Not at the port on the island (I guess, too many cruise ships) but in Tønsvik by the mainland. Some weeks ago I asked the Alfred Wegener Institut (AWI) if it was possible to visit the ship but it couldn’t be done this time. Anyhow I took the car after work and drove there to get at least some photos.

Hopefully I’ll get a opportunity for a visit another time. And yes – I long deeply for the Arctic when I see the Polarstern lying there or check the track in the internet.

But hiking in the Norwegian Nature always helps. Two photos from a short hiking trip after the icebreaker photos:

Cruise leftovers: a seagull, a map and a tiny planet Jun 28 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-06: Arctic Ocean cruise KPH”.

One week ago I left the icebreaker Kronprins Haakon in Longyearbyen, Svalbard after a three week cruise. On the same day I took the plane back to Tromsø together with a lot of scientists from the same cruise.

The cruise went a little differently than planned. As you can see on the map below we seemed to cruise in a quite chaotic way.

Cruise track of the Arctic Ocean 2023 I cruise

But every loop was there for a reason. The left loop leading north was the attempt to cruise to station 05 at 83°58′ N. You see the line of planned stations in the upper right. But our attempt was in vain, the ice was too thick to get there.

So we decided to do research in the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard. Since this was never the plan we didn’t have a permit to do research in Greenlandic waters. Therefore we headed south and east to do a first ice station in Norwegian waters and then another one at 80 °N. That’s the right loop.

We were lucky: already after a couple of days we got the permit for Greenland. So we headed south and then west again into Greenlandic waters. Here we still had to zigzag a bit through the ice but there was another effect that made the track a bit special: The ice stations.

The ice floes drifted south with a speed of round about 0.7 knots (as far as I remember). When the ice station lasted 36 hours, that’s a drift of more than 45 kilometres. That’s the small loops to the south at 6.5 °W, 4° W and 2° W.

And since we had some travel time, I could take some photos. For example from the incredibly elegant ivory gull.

And even when I was on the sea ice to make aerial photos with my drone I often had some extra minutes to play around with the panorama function, resulting in so-called “tiny planet” photos.

Tiny planet with Kronprins Haakon in the Fram Straight, June 2023

Oh – I’m longing back to the Arctic. Home in Obbola in Sweden it is really warm and 24 °C inside of our house. A bit too warm for my taste. And rain would be very welcome, our garden is very dry.

Travelling from ice to summer Jun 22 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-06: Arctic Ocean cruise KPH”.

This photo was taken three days ago:

These photos were taken three hours ago:

Quite a contrast, isn’t it?

18 June (four days ago)

I stand on the sea ice for the last time as part of the polar research expedition with the ice breaker Kronprins Haakon. It has become quite foggy and we will close the ice station earlier due to bad visibility. If you cannot spot the polar bears it is not safe and we had quite a few of them the last two weeks.

19 June (three days ago)

Today we stop the ship several times for the usual CTD casts to get the salinity and temperature of the sea water in different depths. For science it is always interesting to get comparable measurements. One way is to do a transect, a series of the same type of measurements in different locations, mostly in a line. Today we do CTD casts at 2° W, 1° W, 0°, 1° E, and 2 °E. So today we have crossed the Prime Meridian.

For doing CTD casts the ship must stand still. At 1° E I use this to fly my private drone from the helicopter deck for the first picture above. (Memo to myself: do not fly a drone in fog, it is hard to land.)

20 June (two days ago)

After four days of fog it finally clears up in the evening. And for the first time in 18 days we can see land again, the long and narrow island Prins Karls Forland.

We can get a lot of information about what’s going on on the TV. On channel 9 there is OLEX, a navigation system. I see, that Helmer Hanssen, another research vessel owned by the University of Tromsø is nearby. The ships are getting closer and closer and I go up to the helicopter deck to take some photos. There’s a reason for the ships to meet. Malin, a researcher in the field of arctic and marine biology is transferred from our ship to Helmer Hanssen by boat. She will join another cruise.

21 June (yesterday)

In the morning we have approached Adventfjorden, where the main city Longyearbyen is located. Due to the touristic cruise ships occupying all dock places we will stop in the open water. From there we are transferred to land by boat as well. I’m in the first boat because I want to meet people in Longyearbyen at Forskningsparken. There UNIS, the university of Svalbard is located and a department of the Norwegian Polar Institute, too.

We get a car transport there and I meet Vegard, that helped me with drone flying and Luke, that I have worked with quite a bit. Luke and I have even time to get some outdoor lunch in the summery town. It’s sunny and more than 10 °C. (Too warm for me.) He mentions that it got quite green in Longyearbyen. And I spot the first flowers.

At the airport there are long queues everywhere. It is not build for large groups of slightly disorientated tourists. But we arrived early. Shortly after half past two we lift off. I glue myself to the window to see the fjords, the mountain chains and the glaciers of Svalbard passing by.

Spitsbergen in June — from the plane III

Amidst between Svalbard and Tromsø I manage to spot the arctic island Bjørnøya in the haze. For the first time in my life! The photo is heavily processed to make Bjørnøya visible.

And then we land in Tromsø where the vegetation just has exploded in my three weeks of absence. Everything is green and there are flowers everywhere. I am lucky and get a lift home. (Thank you, Tore!)

22 June (today)

I drop by in the office to meet my colleagues. Good to see them in real life. We talk about the cruise and many other things. But after work I take a bath in the sea. So refreshing when it is summer and 25 °C! That’s more than twenty degrees warmer than four days ago when I navigated my small drone to take a photo of Kronprins Haakon in the sea ice somewhere between Greenland and Svalbard.

23 June (tomorrow)

Tromsø is my work home, but Obbola in Sweden is my home home. Tomorrow I will travel there. If everything goes well it “only” takes 18 hours. And then I finally will be united with my wife Annika again in our cosy house by the Baltic Sea.

The fourth ice station – orthophoto and ice coring Jun 19 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-06: Arctic Ocean cruise KPH”.

It’s Monday, 19 June 13:35 and I just started writing this blog article. For two days the weather has been very foggy and on the 5th ice station (st11) only part of the research could be done due to the bad visibility. While I am writing, we have arrived at our next station (st13) and started to lower the CTD in the moon pool that is in the ship. We are 180 metres west from the prime meridian, that goes through Greenwich. But back to four days ago in times were there was no fog at all …

We are at our 4th ice station with the number st9 and the weather looks ideal for drone flying. Soon after breakfast I’m ready to go on the ice but first the ship has to be anchored to the ice floe. Then the polar bear guard enters the ice and after that we do. As usual most of us leave the helmets by the ship. They are mandatory on deck 3 because of the winches but on the ice we don’t need them.

Drone flying goes well. I even have time and battery to get another try, just to be sure. I corrected exposure, exported 94 images and let them be stitched together to get an aerial “orthophoto” of the area. I added some comments on the image:

After that I have time to stay a bit on the ice. Everything goes well, no one needs my help so I take some photos of Cora doing an ice core. With 110 cm the ice is thicker than the ice corer’s length, therefore the core does not come up in the corer. However Cora just grabs it with her fingers and pulls it up.

Later on the day I play with my private drone on the helicopter deck. One thing is to take aerials from above, another one is to chase ice flows. I am quite nervous because now I look onto the drone from above and it’s hard to tell how close it is to the water. I want to keep my drone and so I keep distance but I get a photo from my favourite ice floe.

At 20:00 I go out onto the ice again, this time to help the oceanographers with the MSS and SUNA. It is really nice that another researcher and I are allowed to help because without us they probably would be faster. Everything takes a little bit the first time. The oceanographers made it clear: You are here to do things and not to take photos. And so this “trip” was very special to me: I didn’t take a single photo! Unbelievable, isn’t it?

Back to the present: The winch with the CTD is still going done, now at a depth of 1800 metres. The bottom depth is shown as 2587 m, so there is a bit to go. The vertical velocity is 1 m/s, so we have almost another hour until the CTD is up again.

Polar bear in the morning Jun 18 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-06: Arctic Ocean cruise KPH”.

One hour ago my telephone rang. 5:32. I picked up the phone. “Polar bear at the port side” I was told. I put on some overclothes over my pyjamas took the photo backpack and the big lens and walked outside. And there it was: I big polar bear quite near the ship. It had already circled the stern of the ship and was now starboard side.

It sniffed curiously around and was interested in all these smells the ropes emitted. And unfortunately is was quite interesting in the air sampling station as well. I hope that all the cables survived.

When it didn’t find anything of interest it slowly walked away into the fog that had started coming up.

The third ice station – MSS and SUNA Jun 16 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-06: Arctic Ocean cruise KPH”.

It is 13 June. Kronprins Haakon has approached 6.5° W in the Fram Strait and today we’ll start our 3rd ice station.

The weather seems to be better in the morning so I go out to fly the drone after breakfast. But this time I do not manage to get enough photos for the aerial orthophoto that is supposed to show the whole ice station.

It is probably a combination of wind and drift. The drone uses GPS to keep its position. The ice floe doesn’t. It drifts in the wind and so the drone seems to be drawn off-course all the time. We may have a drift of 0.6 knots, that’s almost 20 metres per minute.

At the same time it is windy in 80 metres height. This exhausts the batteries pretty fast and finally I have to cancel the flight operation. No orthophoto today. Sorry.

Just some non-drone photos from the morning.

In the afternoon I have the opportunity to join Anna and Julie from the oceanography team. Part of their work is done from the ship and part from the ice. Now they will put two instruments into the water: An MSS measuring turbulences and a SUNA measuring nitrates, one of the main nutrients in the sea. Both instruments also act as CTDs and measure conductivity, temperature and depth. I won’t go into detail because I’m not a scientist and this is not a science blog. I only want to mention that conductivity is used to calculate the salinity. By temperature and salinity you can learn whether the water is Arctic or Atlantic. (Is this correct, oceanographers?)

MSS

The first thing was to get ready the MSS. It needs some preparation to first connect battery, converter, power adapter, computer and the MSS and then start the software. Some of the connections are quite fragile. The MSS is connected to the computer and sends continuous data that is shown on the display. When it is put into the water, a recording is started. Then the MSS is supposed to fall freely. Therefore there has to be an amount of extra cable in the water but not so much that it would get tangled. The cable is more than 200 metres long and the recording is manually stopped when the depth has become constant. Now it’s exercise time: Bring up the instrument again. The MSS is still sending data but it is only used to know when to slow down with winching up the instrument.

Normally a series of three casts is done in a row. That helps to find and correct faulty measurements.

I am watching curiously (Photo: Ann Kristin Balto, Norwegian Polar Institute)

The MSS is in the water – to the right the ice

SUNA

The SUNA is much easier to power on and to deploy. I’ll help Julie a bit with preparation, then I put the instrument into the water. 50 metres down – nice and evenly – and then 50 metres up again. The instrument is surprisingly heavy even under water. So I’m learning a lot about scientific measurements and get a bit of workout as well today.

While I pull up the SUNA I get informed by other scientists how expensive this instrument is and that there probably is no insurance. Thank you for that ;-)

It happens quite often, that scientists do measurements not for themselves, but for colleagues. So it is the case with the SUNA. The data is collected here and now but then send to other scientists that will process the data later.

Me deploying a SUNE (Photo: Ann Kristin Balto, Norwegian Polar Institute)

Other measurements

On this ice station we have the luxury to work by the open water and do not have to cut a hole into ice which is more than one metre thick. Soon we get neighbours: other scientists getting samples and measurements. As usual all guarded by a polar bear guard that carries a flare gun to scare off polar bears and a rifle. Today it is Harald, our cruise leader.

An unexpected encounter

Julie and Anna have started another series of MSS casts. Dima and Cora are passing by, doing another transect. Rupert is their polar bear guard. After a while I look into their direction and see the four figures of the transect team near an ice ridge. Three are clad in the usual colourful overalls, one figure – further to the right – is white. Why? Is it a piece of ice? No, it is a polar bear standing on its back legs. All these observations and thoughts of mine probably just took a second.

I directly call Harald: “Polar bear, over there”, pointing in the direction. The bear is on all fours again and hidden between the ridge ice. Harald takes the VHF to inform everyone. So Rupert, the polar bear guard of the team that is nearest to the bear gets the information as well.

Dima and team turn around and come to our place. The bridge has spotted the polar bear soon after I did and now we hear in the VHF, that the polar bear is moving away. Perfect! We stay alert for a while, then research is continued.

I however follow Dima to the ship. When the polar bear should decide to come back it’s one person less on the ice.

Usually it is one of the three bridge watches who spots a polar bear. Then the VHF will be used to inform everyone about:

in which direction is the bear (1 to 12 o’clock)
how far is it away
what is it doing (standing, going away, heading to the ship …)

We will never know, why the polar bear was not spotted earlier. One guess is that it had slept all the time well hidden from view. When Dima came nearer with the Magnaprobe, the “beep” of the instrument may have woken up the bear. But it’s still just a guess.

Later at the daily 6 o’clock meeting we talk about this encounter. Harald shows a sketch that he has drawn on the digital whiteboard.

Personally I felt save all the time because there were two experienced and fully equipped polar bear guards nearby. I think however that my communication to Harald although fast could have been more precise. Well, I’m still learning …

This was an interesting day on the ice. I’m only a bit sulky because I didn’t manage to get the drone photos I wanted to.

Midnight sun in the Arctic Jun 15 2023

This article is part of the series “2023-06: Arctic Ocean cruise KPH”.

Just a photo from today, taken three minutes after midnight.