Icy blue

I stepped over ice covered rocks. Slipped in to the sea.

This is it. Swimming with seals in the nature reserve. To dark for any photo.

The four of us - equally curious and sceptical. Dark sea floor, night blue sky. Autumns first ice on a rocky beach.

I miss you

my weird old friend the sea

Flickering trough old pictures

Nice and cold
Børvågen in april

Urchin time!

Excellent urchins now. Loaded with delicious red roe.

We vent to Børrvågen for some afternoon snorkeling.























Victors first taste of urchin roe.














The boys having a break. Drinking hot chocolate on the beach.



















We made Urchin roe on Strawberry!

Late afternoon snorkeling

Coffee and a nice, warm cap on my head, at the beach after some late afternoon snorkeling.

I went to Børra. Nice temperature in the air. A lot of fresh water coming down from the snow melting in the mountains made the sea very cold, and fuzzy. Layers with fresh water made it hard to see anything in the north. The south part of the bay was better.

Brrr!

Springs first dip. Felt more like winter. Couldn't move my lips or toes for some time.

Snorkelling at Kinnvoll

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by Martin Kristiansen
To hot to stay on
shore with 6,5 to
13 mm of black super
insulating neopreon.

There's a story behind this, but right now there are some shore crabs shimmering on the stove. Some catch to take care of.

Masse bubbelurer, for det meste strandsnegler. Tok med mange grønne kråkeboller. Var også noen røde, men små boller der. Brukte en uendelighet på å renske dem. Fullstendig fritt for fisk, hvis du ser vekk fra verdens minste flyndre - og lillebroren. Kom også over en fjesing eller noe som lignet.

Helt utrolig langgrunt. Hele nederste delen av bukta flødde igjen. Måtte vade tilbake fra holmen jeg tok ut fra.

Sikten var god, og mye mer enn ti meter, men kom aldri så langt ut at det ble dypere enn det. Svømte helt ut til det ytterste skjæret. Flere undervannsskjær underveis.

Lenger sør, mot elva var det mer uklart. Mye glassmaneter. Ellers var det strandkrabbe i søkk og kav. Mye eremittkreps av typen stor.

Svømte rett på ei havørn. Så ung ut. Mye grått, brunt og spraglete i fjærdrakten. Var litt liten. Virket litt puslete. Kom helt inn på den før den så meg. Tror ikke den helt forstod hva jeg var. Den gjorde et par spede forsøk på å fly. Enten var den ikke redd meg, eller så var den for avkreftet til å klare det.

Had to wade back from the islet. Kind of figured it out before I went out to the islet.

Possibly the whitest boy alive! Anyway, coffee and chocolate biscuits made it worth the effort.

Here, and out a kilometer or a half. Shallow, sandy bottom.

Who could possibly deny that this is a really, really nice place?

Coffee on the beach

Coffee on the beach
Originally uploaded by Martin Kristiansen

Coffee on the beach - the Norwegian way. Summer has finally arrived in Northern Norway. The temperature is rising, and today was a perfect day to chill out on the beach. You just remember to dress well.

It was not that bad. Just having a coffee after some hours snorkling in the evening.

Dette så jeg:

Kråkeboller. Grønne og en og annen svart. Massevis av kråkeboller. Ser ikke ut som om noen spiser kråkeboller her - utenom kråka da. Så bare to fisker. En rognkall og verdens minste rødspette. Kun to skikkelige skjell. O-skjell. Fin størrelse, selv om de var noe ensome.

Foruten at det var kråkeboller i overflod, var det også en overflod av snegler. Et paradis for snegleetere! Var også skikkelige kongesnegler her. De hvite med ordentlig skru. Strandkrabbe og eremittkreps var det også plenty med.

Dette var i Børrvågen, bukta mellom Nordmela og Børra. Langgrunt. Store dønninger i havgapet. Nesten som å surfe.

Gikk også på land og tok en tur til fots til ei bukt lengre ut. Her var det vedlig klart og fint vann. Grusbunn, men kun snegler, eremittkreps og strandkrabber.


- I fear nothing, said the common shore crab.

Things I saw. Only looking for edible animals ;-)

• Drøbakkskråkebollen - Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis - Green edible Norwegian sea urchin
• Rognkall - Cyclopterus lumpus - Lump sucker
• Rødspette - Pleuronectes platessa - European plaice
• O-skjell - Modiolus modiolus - Horse mussel

And I am pretty sure I met this snails:

• Strandsnegl - Littorina littorea - Common periwinkle
• Purpursnegl - Nucella lapillus - Dog whelk (purple snail)
• Kongesnegl - Buccinum undatum - Common whelk
• Neptunsnegl - Neptunea despecta - Rejected Neptune

But I now have learnt that it is very hard to determine snails. Did you know that they actually use the size and shape of the animals penis to determine the species? Although the books say nothing about determination of a female snail. If penis peering doesn't work out, they use DNA-analysis. So I am fairly pleased with my own determination, made through the goggles while floating in open sea.

• Strandkrabbe - Carcinus maenas - Common shore crab

And this little fellow, which is probably not edible, but funny too watch:

• Eremittkreps - Pagurida - Hermit crabs, don't know which. There were so many.

Funny to watch are also the goby, which I presume inflects to gobies. These were amazingly colorful. Hey! That's guppies, I told myself.


Børra sett fra havet. Børra viewed from the sea.

The hunt

Nord om badeplassen. Over sundet mot Geitarøyna. Algeblomstring og kort sikt. Traff en sildestim i bukta på øya.

Diving mud

Diving from Sletten kai today was like diving in mud. The sea was one brown soup of mud and algae.

I didn't sea Nina on my way to the bottom. Had to sit still on the bottom for over a minute. Then I spotted her stream of air bubbles. A black shadow in the algae soup came towards me. After signaling, every thing OK, to each other we continued down and out of the harbor.

We have dived this place before, and therefore expected a clean sand floor. Not this time. Some brown algae I don't know have taken over the sea floor. This is usually a good place to pick scallops, but this time we didn't find many of them. Probably because of the algae. Got a handful of scallops and didn't see much else. But the cold May sun shined at us on the pier, so we used pretty long time to get our gear together. Just enjoying the sun, talking, eating and packing the gear together was worth the trip. After a rainy winter this cold sun was overwhelming.


Dive buddy Nina with treasures from the sea.


Me relaxing.

Diving with the colossus

This gigantic Nephrops norvegicus waves its claws against me. I stop. This is nothing like expected.

This colossus probably measuring up at 15 fabulously centimeters. He is king of his cave, and ruler of the sandy sea floor in front of me. Backing in to his cave he whispers silently to me: – Float any nearer and I will make seafood of you.

This dive was a pleasant surprise. Nothing like expected. Shallow water and a muddy sea floor was what I had pictured. The pier, where we could park our cars close to the sea, were the only reason for us to chose this place. I, and my dive buddy Nina, had also grown tired of our usual dive sites.

We saw many different sea animals. Ling was the most common fish at this places. A little bit surprising, because we didn't dive that deep. My depth meter stopped at 23 meters. They have probably come up from the deep cold fjord to prey on small fish in the warm shallow water.

I recommend this place to those who have just started out diving. There is no nasty currents here, nor no danger of getting to deep. You just follow the berg down to your favorite depth. When it's time to descent, just fin in to the each and follow it upwards. There you can take a really lazy safety stop. Laying on a shelf watching small creatures crawl around you.

TIL MEG SELV: Foruten lange, så vi flere sorter eremittkreps. Noen av disse hadde lange, blå tråder. Forskjellige sjøstjerner, en sjøpølse, små krabber, kråkeboller og mange kolonier med store o-skjell.