Rotterdam (or Anywhere) – Page 61 – Adventures in the Netherlands & around the world

Ice in Ramfjorden

05/05/2012 Paul

Yesterday evening the water around Tromsø was mirror calm and I (Paul) decided it was time for the first boat trip of the year! I had heard that the sea ice in Ramfjorden had recently broken up and thought it would be interesting to make a trip in the channels between the ice floes.

When I got to Ramfjorden, I found that all the broken-off pieces of ice had been blown out of the fjord so the maze of channels I was hoping for was gone. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful evening in the fjord.

The remaining ice was very thin (5-10 cm), too thin for a person to walk on, but plenty thick enough for sea gulls.

After taking some photos, I met up with a friend who lives by the side of the fjord, who invited me in for coffee. After the sun had gone down it was time to return to Tromsø. On the way back I found that the surface of the fjord had begun to freeze over, and I could hear it cracking under the boat. I was surprised how quickly the thin ice had formed. It was perhaps good that I did not stay longer 😉

Krokvatnet and Tomasjordnes

30/04/2012 Hanneke

Right now the snow (sigh) is falling outside the window, and I long back to the long stretch of sunny days we had for a while. Oh well, at least I have time to catch up with my blog 😉 Here are some photos from an evening trip to Krokvatnet, which is one of the Ti på Topp winter turs this year. We went on ski’s and we were racing against the growing shadows all the way up… eventually we lost 😀

The way up had been quite tiring, but the way down was lots of fun! Nice soft snow, and enough space to make turns. In the “forest” (the trees are tiny) we found a lot of ryper (ptarmigan/grouse). They don’t seem very keen on flying, they run around a lot. Some of them would stand underneath a bush and jump up repeatedly to reach a branch – it was hilarious to watch! I tried to come close to get some photos, but some ninja decided he wanted to be in the photo too and of course scared the bird away…

The sunset was beautiful!

On our way back we stopped at the supermarket at Tomasjordnes, an area on the mainland with very new apartment blocks. It’s really modern, with houses on poles standing in the water. I’d recently seen someone who live there post photos from his balcony and I was really impressed by the view. So out of curiosity, we decided to walk around and look at the neighborhood. It’s surprisingly nice 🙂

And look at the view some people have from their flats… I’m jealous!!

It’s really nice that the days are long enough now for after-work trips 🙂 although it does mean that the northern lights season is over for now. But that evening it JUST about got dark enough for the northern lights to be visible… a last farewell 🙂 I took this photo behind our flat, it was nearly 1 in the morning and I should have been in bed as I had a shift starting at 06:30 the next morning… oops 😉

Sommarøy Sunset

28/04/2012 Hanneke

Last week we drove to Sommarøy to take pictures of the sunset. Sommarøy is ideal for this, as it’s located on the outer side of Kvaløya with only open ocean to the west 🙂 We had a really nice evening walking on the beaches…

I had fun taking photos of the sunset with my neutral gradient filters, and Paul flew his kite for a while – there was just about enough wind. Sunset that day was at 21:18, but it rises again less than 6 hours later (at 4 in the morning). Although it doesn’t really get dark anymore, the sky turns this intense orange near the horizon – so beautiful!

We climbed Ørnfløya just after sunset to get photos of Sommarøy from above. There was a large flock of reindeer on the mountain too.

I could have stayed there all night, I was hoping the northern lights might make another appearance, but Paul was going on a skiing trip the next day and he was keen to get some sleep 😉 We made it back to Tromsø by midnight, I was tired but very happy 🙂