About a tough women

Last year our association Mörkrets och Kylans Glada Vänner (Happy Friends of Cold and Darkness) got a special request. Josefine Steenari from Lindome nearby Göteborg had the wish to take a winter bath.

For most people it sounds really crazy to enter a pool with ice cold water with temperatures between +0.1 °C and +0.4 °C. But some people just want to try it anyway, and so did Josefine. While most people just could go or drive to the next ice hole, undress, take a deep breath and go into the icy water, Josefine needs some help, since she is almost totally paralysed. She communicate with her eyes but she has no control about her extremities and is sitting in a wheel chair.

Mörkrets och Kylans Glada Vänner was glad to help. Our first plan was to let her ice bath be part of the Winter Swimming Championship on last Saturday, but unfortunately the gangway down to the ice covered river Skellefteälven was too steep and we couldn’t guarantee Josefine’s safety.

Fortunately we found another possibility. The association has an ice hole for winter bathing in Kåge, not far away from Skellefteå. Here we met Josefine and her team on Sunday evening and after a bit of thinking and planning we all were ready for her first ice bath. Josefine sat in a special sling (I’m not sure if it’s the right word), that was attached to a log and Hans and Jarkko lowered her slowly, while I was behind her in my waterproof immersion suit to turn her a bit. Tiina counted the seconds and after round 12 seconds she was lifted up again.

I heard, that Josefine loved the experience and that the ice water didn’t felt as cold as expected. I was glad and even a bit proud to be part of the team, that could help her to fulfil her wish. One more crazy ice bather in Sweden!

Entering the pool (Foto: Annika Kramer)Josefine Steenari (Foto: Norran, Karin Israelsson)

1st photo: Annika Kramer, 2nd photo: Norran, Karin Israelsson

Links:

Winter Swimming World Cup and Scandinavian Championship 2016

Last Saturday the 5th winter swimming competition in Skellefteå took place, this time not only as a Scandinavian Championship but even part of the world cup. The Happy Friends of Cold and Darkness (or in Swedish: Mörkrets och kylans glada vänner, which I’m a member of, was the organiser of this event.

I wasn’t part of the organisation team this year, but I was on the ice round the swimming pool and took many photos, both for me and the media.

The first winter swimming in 2012 was the coldest with temperatures round -32 °C. This year it was much warmer with only -1 °C, but the wind and the snow showers made the event to a chilly experience, too.

Here are some impressions:

The winter swimming poolSplit imageIce swimmerIce swimmerThe most beautiful capIce swimmerIce swimmerIce swimmerIce swimmerPool edgePool edgeIce swimmerReaching the finischReaching the finischFoot wearFoot wearIce swimmerIce swimmerIce swimmerRelay startDoing the crawlProtected against wind and snowThe finnish band “Eskimovähemmistö”Diver for security

Links to blog articles about the other winter swim championships in Skellefteå:

 

The snow returns

I dislike thaw. When it’s winter I want to see white snow, not brownish slush and drizzle falling from low-hanging clouds.

The latter was the weather that we got for four days. The snow slid from the roofs and melted away and under many water puddles sheer ice covered the roads. But alas, yesterday the weather changed and it started to snow. Today it has been quite windy and it has been constantly snowing. The strong winds glue the wet snow to the houses, the cars, and the windows.

View through the window

I guess, we got round 20 cm of snow the last 24 hours and it continues snowing. The thick brown half-frozen chunks of wet snow, that framed all streets start to get a fresh white snow blanket and small snow drifts cover the roadways.

Snow drift or mountain chain?Will this fence be visible tomorrow?

Yes snow – that’s more my cup of tea. I hope however, that the wind gusts will stop soon, since tomorrow the Winter Swimming World Cup and Scandinavian
Championship 2016 will take place in Skellefteå and I guess it won’t be much fun for the swimmers standing in some kind of “snow storm” dressed only with a swimsuit and a warm cap. And neither for me, who is going to take pictures of this event.

No sun today

As you can see in the blog posts before, we had really nice winter weather with a lot of sun the last weeks. Even last night was clear. When I stood up at 7 o’clock we had -15 °C outside, but it was cloudy. Three hours later the temperature has climbed to -5 °C and it started to snow.

Annika and I went outside to go for a walk. It became a bit longer and chillier than planned: We went to the shore and rounded the island Norrskär on the thick ice layer that covers the Baltic Sea. When we returned to the mainland, wind and snowfall had intensified. It’s still snowing, but not very much, just some centimetres, I guess.

This photo shows a nameless stony island between Norrskär and the mainland. What a contrast to the photos of the sunrise some days ago.

Snowfall on the Baltic Sea

It’s not the photo, it’s the whole landscape that looks monochrome and the island Gåsören – 2 kilometres away – was even completely hidden behind the falling snow.

Icicle tree – a short trip to Holmsund

When I took the car to Umeå three days before, temperatures where between -20 °C and -31 °C. Today it was much warmer in Umeå, just round -4 °C.

Annika and I took the car to Holmsund, a place 20 km south from Umeå. This coastal locality has round about 5500 inhabitants and is special, because here starts the only ferry connection from Sweden to Finland beside those from Stockholm. When we arrived, the ferry from Vaasa in Finland just had anchored.

The Wasaline ferry

Neither of us has been in Vaasa before, so we thought about making a trip to Finland, perhaps already in two weeks, if the weather isn’t too bad.

Right beneath the ferry dock there’s a pair of piers reaching 700 meters into the sea. If you look east, you see that the Baltic Sea is ice covered beside of the waterway. But in contrast to the Baltic Sea outside of Skelleftehamn, which is thick, solid ice, you can see the big ice floes lift and lower with the underlying waves. If you look west, you see the mouth of the river Umeälven, where the water is mostly open and small ice floes float and drift southwards.

I don’t know, when it has been so windy, that the waves rolled over these piers, but you could still see the result: Many of the dried up flower stalks and the lower branches of bushes and trees were covered with a thick layer of ice. It must be both impressive and frightened to witness such a stormy weather in winter.

Icicle tree“Reduction”

Short trip to Bjuröklubb

Yesterday I went to Umeå by car, but I took a detour. In Övre Bäck, where I made the photo from the “Winter tree” I left the E4 to drive to Bjuröklubb, a salient that reaches wide into the Baltic Sea.

In summer, you can walk up from the parking place, eat in the Café Fyren or follow the wooden walkway up to the light house. In winter time this place is abandoned. I took my snow shoes and went first along the shore and then up to the light house.

Temperatures were between -25 °C and -30°C and the sky was totally clear. Another wonderful winter day.

Leaving snow shoe tracks along the coastLonely treeThe only cabin on the way upThe way up to the light tower IIThe way up to the light tower IBjuröklubb light house IIBjuröklubb light house I