Your mileage may vary

Another aspect of travel preparation: Getting a feeling for distances. I tried to get a feeling for distances by designing a map:

The distances in Northern Sweden, Norway and Finland.

I marked some larger towns on the map and used Google Maps to calculate the distances. Then I wrote the distance on the connecting lines. Are you wondering what the numbers mean? It’s miles! But neither statute miles nor nautical miles, it’s Swedish Miles or Norwegian Miles which nowadays are exactly 10 kilometres. There are commonly used in everyday language and no one would say “It’s 30 kilometres to Boliden”, when you could say “It’s three miles” instead.

But numbers are dangerous. The numbers on the map are just miles on the shortest way between point A and point B. Not more. There’re saying nothing about detours, weather conditions, photo breaks and the fact that you’re not allowed to drive faster than 60 on many Norwegian roads. And the map says nothing about all the small nice places – known and unknown – that I want to visit. And a lot of roads to these places are dead ends, you’ll have to drive back the same way doubling the mileage.

But numbers are interesting too. Take your magnifier glasses and seek for Inari. Found it? You see Kirkenes—Inari is 20 miles. OK, that’s not too bad. But have another look for Vardø. Vardø–Mehamn is 61 miles, more than 600 kilometres even if it’s just 14 miles as the crow flies. That’s because my car is neither able to fly or to swim and I have to follow the roads. And there are a lot of fjords in Norway forcing you into endless detours. Sometime you can already see your destination but have do drive two other hours to arrive. Sometimes that’s great, sometimes you just want to arrive at some chosen destination.

That’s why I added the red dots between Tromsø and Kirkenes. That’s the stops of the Hurtigruten, the famous Norwegian ships. If I’ll take the big tour even to Kirkenes – one of the things I will decide much later – I definitely will take the Hurtigruten to cut down the miles sometimes. And I’m looking forward to that too, it’s always nice to be on a ship.

Now I have only two days job left, then my free time starts: 108 days till Easter Monday. But I won’t start the journey before the 8th of January. That gives me some more weeks for additional planning …

Déjà vu

An addendum to “Roller coaster weather”

Yesterday I already guessed that I would have a déjà vu today – and I got it! The day resembled last Wednesday in so many details: The same temperature rise the night before, the same car ride to the car service station (some additional fixes) and the same way back home by foot. Maybe a bit more rain, maybe a bit less storm, but the same clothing as  altogether the same: Waterproof parka, rain pants, rubber boots and – most important of all – spikes you can attach to your boots.

Caution – wet ice on the roadSpikes in profile view

Definitely not my favourite type of winter. I definitely prefer cold weather and loads of snow.

Roller coaster weather

This December the weather is like a roller coaster, going up and down, bringing frost, rain, hail, sleet and storm. It’s not at all the winter you imagine when you think on Northern Sweden.

Monday started with sunny weather and temperatures round 1 °C – cold enough to cover the windscreen with a thick layer of window frost. (I prefer the German name “Eisblumen” which means ice flowers.) Then it got colder.

Window frost on the windshield

Tuesday it was quite clear and cold with temperatures round -7 °C with a minimum of -9 °C at 22:00. In the next three hours temperatures rose by 10 °C and the next morning we had +3 °C and heavy winds. I left my car at the car service station to get it checked before my winter journey and took some photos on the way back home. I attached spikes to my boots because the wet icy roads where extremely slippery. When I went back some hours later to get the car I was surprised at the high water level. This day the water level climbed 70 cm, that’s a lot for the Baltic Sea and only happened because of the storm pressing the sea water ashore.

Stormy morning with a view on the peninsula Kallholmen

The next two days were cloudy, temperatures round + 2 °C with some drizzle that instantly froze on the cold ground. Saturday evening – which was yesterday – it started to get colder and rain started to mix with snow and some soft hail. In the evening it finally started to clear up a bit und got colder.

Today it was quite clear, temperatures round -8 °C and I took a tour to the peninsula Örviken. Örviken has an area of 1 km², 400 people are living here. Even if it is quite near I hardly has being there, which is a pity since it’s a nice place, especially if it’s clear and you’re waiting for the sun rise.

And that’s what I did today. A good activity if you caught a cold and want to take it easy.

View over the Baltic SeaStacked ice floesIcy sunrise

On the photos you can see the impacts of the weather: The storm destroyed the ice cover leaving a lot of floating ice floes, but in the cold night the surface started to freeze over again. Do you see the stacked ice in front of the trees? Its laying on land and I guess it was left there after the high water some days before.

After that I drove to another place I already knew and took some photos of the last motif today:

Landing stage in Örviken

Now it’s half past five and -7.4 °C outside. The weather tomorrow? +2 °C and rain! Probably the whole day! Onto the frozen ground! Sounds familiar?

Some vocabularies for my German readers:

roller coaster – Achterbahn
drizzle – Sprühregen
soft hail – Graupel
peninsula – Halbinsel
Ice floe – Eisscholle

Ice und sun from two weekends

Yes, I’ve been partly busy, partly lazy and in addition to that a bit unhappy with my photos the last days. Winter still hasn’t come to Skelleftehamn: Sometimes it’s below zero, sometimes above, sometimes it snows a bit, sometimes it rains (preferably on frozen ground making the streets quite slippery) und quite often it’s cloudy.

For me it’s still a mystery, how lakes, river and even parts of the sea could freeze over if it’s not constantly below zero for a longer period.

When I made the photo Sunrise colours two days ago, I had to wade through hip deep water and swamp to come to my desired place since the ice didn’t bear me. Two days later I saw a photo of the same spot – with a small child ice skating on the frozen surface. But I guess that the locals know the places where it’s save to enter and leave the ice.

A day later I stood at a small rocky beach of the peninsula Kallholmen looking on the bay Sörfjärden. Here you couldn’t sea any ice at all, beside on some stones that are extremely slippery when ice-covered. That’s where I made this photo:

29.11. – Sunset over Sörfjärden

The next saturday – exactly a week later – I was out again to take photos of the sunset. Same bay, different place – this time more upstream. The Sörfjärden is not only a bay but the mouth of the river Skellefteälven, too. The sea is still open but on the sides of the more wind protected river large parts are covered with several layers of ice. The upmost layer was so thin that the ice looked like flakes or feathers.

Ice feathers on the Skellefteälven

Today I drove to Kågehamn to take a sauna with two friends. Kågehamn lies beside of the Kågefjärden which seems to be well protected against wind, since the whole sea is ice covered. The ice is thick enough that people skated to the island Bastuholmen, which is one kilometre away from the shore.

Note to myself: Buy ice skates and learn how to skate – next winter.

While my friends did I skating tour, I was on the ice as well and – surprise, surprise – took some photos. This time mostly of ice cracks and embedded bubbles.

Frozen bubbles

By the way: The first sunset photo was made 13:32, the second was made 13:08. Sun goes down quite early in this time of the year. But sun goes down quite slow as well which is nice if you like taking pictures because you don’t have to hurry too much.

Preparatory consuming

In round about five weeks I’ll start my long winter journey through Northern Scandinavia. There are three types of planning:

  • Which places do I want to visit on my journey?
  • What do I have to organise before the journey?
  • What do I need on the journey?

I’m still not sure mow much I should plan the route of my journey, and I’m right in the middle of organising, but part three seems to be almost done. That’s partly because I already have a lot of equipment (and in parts more than I need …) and partly because I ordered a lot of stuff the last weeks and many small and big parcels arrived here over the last weeks.

New equipment

And that’s some of the items I ordered the last weeks:

  • Top: Super warm expedition down pants from Marmot. Probably not the latest model but quite cheap and good for staying warm if it’s really cold.
  • Left: New rechargeable batteries for my GPS, for the big camera flash light and my headlamp. Most batteries I have are ten years old and I do not trust them anymore, especially if it’s cold.
  • Right: A heavy-duty green PVC smock (which is a pull-over jacket) to protect my other cloth against salt water, mud and sharp rocks.
  • Middle/right: A power inverter that transforms 12 Volt to 230 Volt so that I can charge batteries (and perhaps even my laptop) when driving.
  • Middle/left: An L-Bracket for my Nikon D800 camera that I can fix it on the tripod ball head in both portrait and landscape format.

And guess, what was the most expensive part? Believe it or not, it’s the L-Bracket which was more expensive than even the down pants!

What you see on the photo is just a part of my purchases: With the down pants I ordered the matching down parka, with the smock I ordered bib overalls of the same material.

The tripod got a new ball head and the tele lens a new foot matching the ball head. (My thanks to Jochen for the tips!)

For the car I bought snow chains, a 10 litre petrol canister and a jump starter, which is an external rechargeable battery that will provide enough power to start the car if the original battery is not working. (My thanks to Delle for the tips!)

The only things to buy that are left: A bigger waterproof bag for the camera and a roof box for the car. I know, I know, I could travel with much less equipment but since I have bought the car some years ago I love to take a lot of things with me. And know – back to planning.

Some vocabularies for my German readers:

down pants – Daunenhose
rechargeable – wiederaufladbar
power inverter – Wechselrichter
L-Bracket – L-Winkel
tripod – Stativ
bib overalls – Latzhose
ball head – Stativkopf/Kugelgelenkkopf
snow chains – Schneeketten

Sunrise colours

Late sunrise

The sky was partly cloudy this morning but the late rising sun shone on the clouds illuminating them in warm pastel shades that changed every minute. This shot I made on a small swampy lake not far from my house in Skelleftehamn.

Ice pears and frozen splashes

A starry night was followed by a cloudy and frosty day.

First stop: The bay Kallholmsfjärden. The sea was open but the stems of the reeds were ice coated. The attached ice looked a bit like ice pears.

Ice pearsIce pearsIce pears

Next stop: Storgrundet. This sheltered part of the sea started to freeze over again with soft and thin new ice.  Because of the sinking sea level some of the older ice pieces stood erect. One of them looked like a frozen splash!

„Frozen splash“

Last stop before it got dark: The lake Snesviken. Despite the last week with temperatures slightly above zero the lake is not only frozen, but you could see the first tracks of ice skating.

Ice skate tracks on the lake Snesviken

Some of the locals are quite experienced and they know exactly whether the ice will bear their weight or not. I’m not experienced at all. Therefore I’m nervous even if I have 20 cm ice under my feet which means that the ice would easily bear a car. Today I only crawled two meters onto the icy surface of the lake to take the last photo, well knowing that the water isn’t deep near the shore.

Northern lights and truthfulness

What a nice surprise: After 10 days of dull, cloudy and overcast weather sky cleared up this afternoon. You don’t have to go outside, just have a look at the thermometer: A temperature drop almost guarantees a cloudless sky. But you have to go outside if you want to check for the faint Northern Lights. And this evening I was lucky: a large pale bow of  the aurora borealis was visible in the sky.

Some minutes later I stood beside the small haven tjuvkistan and made the first photo. Click: 15,0 sec at f/2.5, ISO 800 35mm.

Whoa! The whole sky is green, it’s like diving into Fluorescein! Just too much green color! A great deal too much!

I made another photo, knowing beforehand it wouldn’t work. Click: 1,0 sec at ƒ/2.8, ISO 400 35mm, which means only 2.7 % of the light compared to the first photo.

Yes … um … interesting … . Is it art or may I trash it? Too dark! A great deal too dark! This image is just a dumb proof to the platitude I already knew: Cameras need enough light to make good pictures, even a Nikon D800.

15,0 sec at f/2.5, ISO 800 35mm1,0 sec at ƒ/2.8, ISO 400 35mm

Let’s take the 1st photo: I’ll show it again. And again – and again! I cropped it to the same 5:3-format, but processed it in three different kinds.

Version 1: The kitsch-version: I kept the extreme colours and increased contrast, especially in the center. Bang – that’s the photos you show on Facebook!

The “kitsch” version

Version 2: The almost-real-version: I tried to adjust the photo to my memories of the real moment, which means for example that I reduces exposure more than 3 stops and removed saturation of the polar lights by 50%. Well, that’s the photos you won’t show anybody. They are more realistic but a bit prosaic.

The “almost real” version

Version 3: The in-between-version: I tried to find a version between kitsch and almost real. I’m not sure if it’s a good or a bad compromise between the other versions.

The “In between” version

What do you think? Which photo do you prefer? I’m looking forward to your comments.