I got invited to ice skate with a couple guys from church. This is Björn, Ulf and Matthew. They were talking skating on open frozen ocean and needing ice picks to pull yourself out should you go through. Uh...sure, I'm game.
After meeting up at Björn's and borrowing some skates we headed out. Turned out to be great. We went to an area in between some islands that had frozen over. There are a lot of islands in the archipeligo and the past couple weeks have been below 20F. Locals had cleared off part of the snow and underneath was a perfect surface to skate on. Not that this newby made it look pretty. The 18" blades took a while to get use to. Matt & Björn offered some helpful technique advice.
The type of skates were a lot longer than hockey skates. You also carry ski poles for stability and propulsion. Helps to check the ice depth too. We skated off the path to see how far down the ice flow we could go.
After a while the ice showed signs of being soft so we decided to play it safe. We had hoped to reach a small island in the distance to stop for coffee. All in all we were out on the ice about 2 1/2 hours. It was a blast.
This is what the skates & ice picks looked like. Blades are removable. I am glad they let me take part in this very Swedish experience.
I got invited to ice skate with a couple guys from church. This is Björn, Ulf and Matthew. They were talking skating on open frozen ocean and needing ice picks to pull yourself out should you go through. Uh...sure, I'm game.
After meeting up at Björn's and borrowing some skates we headed out. Turned out to be great. We went to an area in between some islands that had frozen over. There are a lot of islands in the archipeligo and the past couple weeks have been below 20F. Locals had cleared off part of the snow and underneath was a perfect surface to skate on. Not that this newby made it look pretty. The 18" blades took a while to get use to. Matt & Björn offered some helpful technique advice.
The type of skates were a lot longer than hockey skates. You also carry ski poles for stability and propulsion. Helps to check the ice depth too. We skated off the path to see how far down the ice flow we could go.
After a while the ice showed signs of being soft so we decided to play it safe. We had hoped to reach a small island in the distance to stop for coffee. All in all we were out on the ice about 2 1/2 hours. It was a blast.
This is what the skates & ice picks looked like. Blades are removable. I am glad they let me take part in this very Swedish experience.
7 comments:
Sounds like way more fun than skating at Eden Park. I'd probably kill myself though using such long skates.
It was a lot more fun than the public rink the family went to back in November. I didn't mention the half dozen times I stumbled and flapped my arms like a pelican and recovered, nor the time I put a knee down or even the one time I hit a soft patch and went down on all fours. Despite me and the really long blades they really are stable especially with the ski poles. The trick is to lift the skates to the side instead of putting them behind you - more like skiing than skating.
Cool! I would love to do something like that myself. Where exactly did you skate?
Roswitha
Wow...cool experience John!! Those skates looked wicked though!!!! I haven't been ice skating since youth group!!!! I am sure it wouldn't be pretty!!!!hehehe
Yeah! I hope you get to go skiing while you are there.
Margaret
Cool! what a unique experience!
looked like a lot of fun!
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