To Riga

The bay of Riga is one solid icefield. Many ships are stuck and waiting for the 2 tugboats helping them out. It takes us lots of time to reach the harbour, but we manage without help. Finally, at night, we reach the quay. Loading starts straight away. The pilot explains Riga is too far away to pay a visit. Not enough time. Next time I will go for sure.

Liferafts

Either Riga or Kaskinen, up north anyway, that's for sure. The crew prepare the lowering of the 2 liferafts that need to be checked and replaced in the lock at Holtenau.

Pirates?

No orders for us yet so we have to wait a day. At anchor close to the dutch coast we are entered by the dutch coastguard. They are all over the place and want to see loads and loads of papers. Intimidating, not so friendly.

Leaving Kings Lynn

I can't say I regret leaving Kings Lynn. In summertime it can be ok for walking along the river. But in wintertime I only see mud, vacant shops and pregnant teenagers. UK is great and sometimes a great disaster. O Ellen, what a bad thing to say about your neighbours! Off to Kiel Canal.

Birthday!

Yesterday, in Kiel Canal these parcels and letters were brought on board by the agent. It was hard not to open them but I waited till coffeetime this morning. Thank you for all the wishes and presents. It feels fantastic to become 40 at sea today together with all of you surrounding me!

One of my favorite sculptures

Every time I visit Hull I go and see this man, standing on what appears to be one of the rocks of the giants causeway in Ireland. I am a fan of both him and what he represents.

Hull in sunshine! Tourist for one day.

Finally the temperature is above zero. 9 degrees, wauw! Late at night we arrive in Hull, but only early sundaymorning the dockers start discharging us. So I have all day to walk around and drink coffee and sit on a bench in the sun. I do all these things and if feels great! The simple things in life become very precious when you have to miss them. Hull is a good place, I always enjoy going there.

Moving icefields

When we follow the buoyline we meet twee big icefields, floating by rapidly. It is impossible to break through them. The ice is more than 50 cm thick. This is potentially a dangerous situation for if we get stuck in one of these icefields there is a chance we drift on the rocks surrounding us. So as quickly as possible we move backwards and wait for them to go. Buoys dissapear and reappear again under the ice. It takes about an houre.

Exit Kaskinen for Hull

Time to go. Our cargo is kerto-wood in packs. Long, thick planks of wood. I love this wood. Would love to design a sculpture made of kerto in the future. Out of the harbour the pilotboat awaits us and in the meantime we pass the pilotstation, beautifully situated overlooking the sea.

tricky bike-ride, truckdrivers and gravestones

I decide to clear my head and go for a ride on the bicycle. Not so easy in 20 cm of snow, but I am looking foreward to some exercise after lots of sitting down on board. It turns out that I cannot ride on the bicycle- lane because it's too slippery, I keep tumbling and falling so instead I choose the main road, which is ok, except for the finnish truckdrivers who stare at me and nearly knock me off my bike, driving by. Finally I reach the graveyard of Kaskinen to take pictures of the piles of snow on the gravestones. I have to grin about this strange day.

Fog

Here we are again. For the first time I don't want to be here, in this cold, dark, foggy and lonely harbour.

Waiting

One by one the ships are being guided to the harbour of Kaskinen. The one before us takes over 3 houres to moore due to the severe ice-conditions. We have to wait 7 houres before the pilot comes on board to take us to the harbour.

O deer

My first bambi... I've never seen this before so the crew look at me with a smile, thinking I am bonkers when I start jumping up and down on deck shouting: look, look, deer on the ice!!

The bay

When empty around midnight we are being ordered out of the harbour. We have to wait for icebreaker Ymer in a bay close to Utansjo. There is another ship with a russian crew, also frozen in the ice. The next day, around noon we spot open water ahead and decide to give it a go. The engineer starts the main engine and wriggeling, moving, going back and forth we slowly break loose. You can see the print of the ship in the ice. The russian captain is not lucky but we set him free by passing by at close range to break the ice. There comes not even one friendly word in return. We are able to reach the point where we have to meet Ymer later on. It saves us one houre. It's a good feeling to set the ship free without help.

Utansjo

There is a quay. That's about it. Utansjo consists of trees, horisontally or vertically organised and an abandoned paperfactory. When the boys open the hatches steam comes out of the logs. Outside is -24 celsius.

Icebreaker Ymer

Finally Icebreaker Ymer calls us on the VHF, we have to get ready to be assisted to the harbour of Utansjo. The chief engineer goes down to start the main engine and soon Ymer arrives to break us loose. The ice is so thick at some places that even she gets stuck several times. We will be the first ship in this small harbour since september. I wonder if we will manage to get in at all.

N-icing

I take a walk around and smile about the small ice- sculptures I discover all around. By the way, I am the only one on board who finds icing beautiful. The crew is not amused at all when everything is frozen.

Stuck near Sundsvall

No way we can manage to reach Utansjo by ourselves. We have to wait for icebreaker Ymer who is very busy helping ships in and out of the harbour. All ships are in trouble, not one of them is able to reach the harbour without help.

Stuck again (26 houres)

The next morning we find ourselves alone. The two ships go to Sundsvall, we have to go more north, to reach Utansjo. There is no possibility to move anymore, we are totally stuck in the ice. Nobody there, no sound, just some big krack every once in a while because the ice is still migrating, with the vessel stuck in it. We have to wait for the icebreaker to guide us in to Utansjo. Last september was the last time a ship visited the harbour, so we expect the worse! For now, just wait and wait.