The last cold morning? Mar 10 2021

A clear blue sky, -20 °C – this may be the last cold morning here in Obbola. I was up early and went to the coast to catch the sunrise. The sea, where I paddled yesterday afternoon was completely frozen over again. Patches of ice fog drifted by – a clear sign that other parts of the sea are open (and that it’s cold). The fog partly hid the island Bredskärssten.

Ice fog in the morning hides the island Bredskärssten

When did you watch your last sunrise? Do it again! It’s always fascinating to see the sky and the clouds change colours– from soft pink to deep purple, from crimson red to bright orange. The sunrise position has moved more and more westwards. Now it’s behind the larger island Bredskär. The sun illuminated the drifting fog in spots of orange.

Now in mid-March the sun rises much faster than in midwinter and soon the colours went pale. Time to go back and to warm up. The parka and mittens kept me warm, but the ski pants were a bit too thin when sitting on the ice.

Ice fog and hard rime Jan 20 2021

When it’s cold – -17 °C yesterday morning – and large parts of the Baltic Sea is still open ice fog forms over the sea. When this fog turns to the land hard rime will cover the bare trees making them look like fragile snow sculptures. A wonderful view.

Icy morning – the trees are packed in hard rime

Icy morning – some islands are surrounded by ice fog

Closing the bathing season in Skelleftehamn? Oct 30 2019

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.

Sea ice in April Apr 12 2019

It’s hardly three days ago, that the water level of the Baltic Sea was extremely low. Now the level is -20 cm, a normal situation.

But there are always changes at the coast. Two cold nights with temperatures below -5 °C were enough to cover some open bays with new fresh ice. The first two photos show the same bay as three days ago, the other two photos show a place near Näsgrundet, 2½ km away.

No kayaking today Feb 21 2019

Yesterday the Baltic Sea was open. Some ice floes drifted in the waves, the rest between mainland and the island Gåsören was open water. Just the photo from yesterday afternoon one more time:

20 February: the Baltic Sea round Gåsören is open

When I saw the open see yesterday I thought about kayaking today. Temperatures below -15 °C were expected. What to wear beside of a dry suit? How many layers?

I started to dig out the door and gate of my garage to be able to get my kayak. That was hard work. The upper layer of the frozen snow that had slid from the roof was as hard as concrete. Even the avalanche shovel with the metal blade could be hug into the snow centimetre by centimetre. But finally I made it, my kayak was free.

Today at 7 o’clock the outdoor thermometer showed -18 °C. Again – what to wear on a kayak winter tour? Two layers of underwear? The winter anorak? The earflap cap made of thick polyester fur? Well, first let’s check the situation by the sea.

Oops …

21 February The Baltic Sea is frozen again

The sea had been frozen overnight. A stripe of at least several hundred metres was covered with soft and thin ice, exactly that type of ice hardest to handle when sitting in a kayak.

Kayaking plans cancelled! Time for another photo.

Travelling to Bjørnevatn Feb 9 2019

This article is part of the series “2019-02: Northern Norway”.

After visiting me home in Skelleftehamn Chris and I continued to Jokkmokk on Thursday. We visited the winter market and then drove to Solberget, where we stayed overnight.

The next day we started a long drive with her car. Chris lives in Bjørnevatn near Kirkenes and we planned to arrive there the very same day. At 7:10 we started our journey that would lead us through Sweden, Finland and Norway.

First the sky was cloudy but the visibility was good. Then it started to get a bit foggy.

Normally that’s no problem. This icy fog however started to cover the windscreen more and more and we had to stop often to scrape of the ice.

In Gällivare we stopped at the gas station and had some breakfast. We also bought a bottle with de-icer for the windscreen and continued our trip.

The de-icer didn’t help, we had to stop many times to scrape away the ice from the freezing fog. We were not the only ones. The headlights and the number plate were covered with several millimetres of ice, too. I never had experiences something like this before.

Only the bottom 15 cm of the windscreen were free of ice. While Chris crouched into the seat to be able to see I gave up taking pictures from the road and photographed sideways.

We approached the Swedish town Karesuando. This small town is located directly on the Muonio älv, which also forms a natural border with Finland. On the other side the town is named Karesuvanto where we took another break.

Strangely the ice problems stopped right after the Finnish border. We continued to Palojoensuu without any problems. There we turned left onto the road 93. An hour later we were at the Norwegian border.

After being stopped by the customs and assuring them that we have neither alcohol nor cigarettes with us, we continued driving through the snowy plains. Next stop: Kautokeino, where most inhabitants are Sámi. Here we ate a hamburger with chips, a typical meal if you travel through Northern Norway.

Until now, Chris had driven a car. Now it was my turn to drive to give her at least a short rest. The first time I drove a diesel.

Round two hours later we arrived in Karasjok. What I already had suspected, confirmed here: It was cold outside: -30 °C. Time for another break.

Back in the car, Chris was driving again. It was dark, it was cold, we were tired and still more than four hours to go.

I started to get bored and played around with my camera.

A pale green stripe appeared above the street. A northern light. The next hour we got quite nice northern lights, mostly directly in front of us. Though being tired we got at least entertainment. The photos are awful, northern lights are not made for being photographed free-handed from a car on a bumpy road.

Finally we came to Tana, where we crossed the river of the same name. A quarter hour later we arrived in the small town Varangerbotn, were we took the last stop of our long trip.

Now we drove along the fjord Varangerfjorden. Anyway, beside of some street lights and the weakened aurora it was pitch black and I couldn’t see the fjord. Beside of that I just longed for a bed.

But finally we arrived at Chris’ home in Berg near Bjørnevatn. Arrival time 23:40, 16½ hours after we started in Solberget.

Here I’ll spend the next days.

Link to the route on Google Maps

Light pillars and northern lights in Bjørnevatn Feb 9 2019

This article is part of the series “2019-02: Northern Norway”.

I have seen light pillars in my life and I have seen the aurora many times. Today I got the perfect combination of these two light effects. And never ever saw I light pillars as clear as today.

To see light pillars you need cold weather. When I was out, it was between -22 °C and -24 °C, probably colder on the frozen fjord. Light pillars are caused by hexagonal ice plates that tend to hover horizontally and therefore reflecting the light vertically. The light source can by natural, as e.g. sun and moon or artificial.

I was very lucky that it was cold and clear today so that I could observe them and make some pictures.

Backsjön Jan 27 2019

A short tour with “turskidor” (touring skis) on the lake Bäcksjön near Umeå. After some days with slightly warmer temperatures and fluffy snowfall we got another sunny day with no wind and temperatures round -20 °C today.

Now I’m home again in Skelleftehamn. This night could be the coldest yet. Already now at 22:30 it’s -25 °C, that’s quite cold for the coast. From tomorrow on it shall become warmer with temperatures mainly round -10 °C.

Welcome to my icy world Jan 19 2019

This morning I walked to the same spot on the island Storgrundet as four days ago. This time I arrived there already at 8 o’clock, one hour before sunrise. It was the coldest winter day yet with temperatures round -22 °C. This means two pairs of gloves: full-fingered stretch fleece gloves for handling the camera and warm woollen mittens for keeping the hands warm.

Four days ago the pancake ice had been still floating on the water. The ice floes had been bobbing up and down in the approaching tiny waves that had come from the open sea nearby.

Today the Baltic Sea was completely frozen as far as I could look. No movement, no sound, just a solid layer of ice to the horizon. The shore was coated with a thick layer of ice, too. The ice looked blueish because of the ambient light. No wonder that this time of the day is called “blue hour”.

I went along the shore. There were mainly two types of ice covering the Baltic Sea:

First there was pancake ice frozen together. The floes built a solid layer of ice but you could still see the patterns of the raised edges.

Then there was fresh ice. The ice itself was flat, clear and featureless, but it was completely covered with featherlike ice and therefore as white as the pancake ice.

While I was walking along the shore the colours had started to change. Opposite the sun the sky became lilac, purple, violet, pink.

Finally the sun rose and started to illuminate the ice.

The ice in the sun looked orange – the complementary colour of blue. The „golden hour“ had started.

Did you notice the round horizon of the last photo? Today’s the first time I tried out my new fish eye lens. Fish eyes make very special pictures due to their extreme distortion. The last photo shows the effect even more clearly. I call it „My icy world“.

Kayak season is over Jan 17 2019

Two days ago I considered to go kayaking a last time before the sea freezes over. Large parts of the inshore Baltic Sea were still open but it was hard to reach the open water without bearing the heavy kayak over the icy, rocky shore or walking on unstable ice. So I decided against paddling.

When I arrived at the seashore this morning it was clear that the kayak season would be over for a while.

Temperatures between -15°C and -20 °C have made the Baltic Sea freeze. It almost looks like one could walk to the island Gåsören, but that wouldn’t work. That, what looks like a solid surface of ice is actually a pattern of floating ice floes. It’s not visible to the naked eye, but comparing photos shows, that there are still tiny waves under the ice floes that make them go up and down.