As you can see, there is absolutely no snow left in my backyard! The weather continued very cold approximately one week into April and then turned warm and rainy.
The hare in the picture below is almost completely brown now.
Soon three weeks ago we went to Sweden, to our neighbour city Umeå for a little shopping. Before Finland and Sweden became members of the EU one could buy tax-free stuff aboard the ferry and there were at least two ferries shuttling across the Gulf of Bothnia year round.
But when Finland and Sweden joined the EU the tax-free sales aboard the ferries were prohibited and the profit of the company went literally overboard and they pulled out.
Since then there has been a small ro-ro ship carrying freight trucks and a handfull of passengers to very high ticket prices so we haven't been going there for more than a decade.
But now there is a new actor in place, the cities of Umeå and Vasa have founded a company and got money from the EU to improve the interregional traffic up here in the north, they bought an old but usable ferry from Gran Canaria, in fact a boat that used to sail here more than 20 years ago! The ticket costs are fair enough so there we went!
Below you see some pictures from our arctic cruise.
Boarding the "Wasa Express"
Santa Cruz de Tenerife...? I dont think so..
Vasa Pilot
Swedish icebreaker "Ymer"
Arctic sunset
4 comments:
Nice to see spring is on its way.
Beautiful sunrise.?
Oh that ride looks so cold, love the boat in the middle of the ice and snow.
Hans I must put you on my blog list or I miss these. Your photos are really lovely! But it looks very cold on your cruise! Was the icebreaker really necessary? I'm glad the snow has gone now. Ingela must be pleased :-)
Hi Val!
Yup, the cruise ws quite cold though the weather was extermely nice. We didn't need the services of icebreaker "Ymer" this time but one week later the "Wasa Express" got stuck for 12 hours and finally made their way back to Finland assisted by this icebreaker.
There is the same problem every spring, the Gulf of Bothnia is full of ice and when the wind is blowing from SW as it usually does in the spring, the ice is showed up against the Finnish coast and as the route is full of skerries and underwater reefs there may be formed walls of ice several meters high and then the journey comes to a grinding halt.
I once got stuck on the boat for 25 hours and we needed two icebreakers to take us to Umeå and then they stopped travelling for five days and I had to drive around the top of the Gulf of Bothnia, 500+ miles, to get home again.
Yes, Ingela is all smiles now and she can be found poking around the garden most every day. :)
But, there is still frost and ice deep down in the ground and nothing will start to grow until we reach above +5 C in the soil. So we have to wait another two to three weeks until we can plant the potatoes and sow the vegetables.
Lovely to read these, Hans. I know it's a few weeks now since you wrote this, but I see you've had some wonderful weather, so the vegetables must be growing nicely now!
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