Kokkola Marina

Six weeks before the expected date, sea ice formed last night in the harbour at Kokkola. It was down to minus 8 overnight, but the direction of wind helps as well, that being from the northeast. This high pressure came in a day or so before, but has established itself now, and today there is a completely clear sky. It is expected to stay this way for a couple more days, very low humidity, and excellent conditions to be outside hiking.

The weekend started with the tail end of the heavy rain storm that hit while I was in Salamajärvi. There was some snow as I left, but on the coast it was just a wild, windy and wet day.

Kokkola is a small town, but the regional capital of Central Ostrobothnia, with a population of approximately 48,000. I used the campsite, which was closed, but still offers a pitch, and electricity, which was useful with the sun too low in the sky to get any decent amount of solar power. It is attractively set on the marina. Just across a smart new apartment development is Trullevinniemi, a 5 kilometre long cape surrounded by old coniferous forests and ancient shingle beaches, formed by land uplift that began 10,000 years ago.

The cape has several bird watching platforms. It is possible to see, red-breasted merganser, lesser black-backed gull, arctic tern, house martin and meadow pipit. Species nesting, though in fewer numbers, include the arctic skua, great black-backed gull, caspian tern, willow grouse and velvet scoter. Visitors also include the razorbill, eider and the Kokkola city symbol, the white-tailed eagle

During the ice age, the Baltic Sea was covered by continental ice. After the glacial period, the Baltic Sea has alternately been a freshwater lake and a brackish water basin. Land uplift as well as the rising sea-levels caused by melting ice have, over the course of time, influenced how the Baltic Sea has been connected to other seas.
It is still continually changing. Climate change causes the seas to rise. In the future, the rise of sea levels may counteract the land uplift.
If sea levels rise as fast as the earth’s crust rises, new land will no longer rise above the surface of water. If sea levels rise faster than the land rises, it is also possible that now visible ground will no longer be so.

Only a couple of other vans were there, and one of them I never saw, as the shutters were down all weekend. In the other were a couple living in their motorhome and working a contract as nurses in the town hospital; it is temporary, for six months, so not worth their effort to move house, though they quite like the lifestyle of van living, having rented the house out. It is the fourth such contract they have worked in the last three years.

Rua and I had two long walks on the cape. I watched the rugby, so no surprise there, and went for a sauna and shower in the local place on Saturday early afternoon.

Many boats have been removed from the sea already, though still a few need be ahead of the arrival of the ice. The lifting, and storage, can be an expensive business.

Today I have driven an hour back up north. Three weeks ago I came off the Bothnian coast to head inland to spend some time in the national parks. My plan is to move south as the cold weather arrives. Though it has arrived, a couple of days ago, I think midweek it will get warmer, and I may be able to get another week or two before the winter properly arrives.

I’m at a campsite in Pyhäjoki, one that only opened this summer, and is on an island on the river Pyhäjoki. Its winter service is to remain open. If sites do remain open they usually charge a lot more, as motorhomes use them in the winter and take a lot of electricity, often for heating, cooking, lighting, and their large TVs. But I’m in the off-season still, not summer, and not winter, so paying a 15 euro rate, which is fine, as it’s difficult to manage otherwise this far north in the winter.