Floating Under the Winter Sky

Tonight’s adventure saw us venturing into the woodlands about half an hour from Rovaniemi to a partially frozen lake. Here Errol, Peta and I squeezed and pulled our way into Tellytuby like floatation survival suits. Sadly Brad was too badly injured to be able to take part in this excursion so he had opted to stay back at our hotel in the warmth.

Once we had donned our very flattering outfits we carefully made our way down to the lake. The use of a pump to stop this section of the lake freezing over creates a small circular space for us to float in. We carefully made our way down the steps into the freezing water, trusting our floatation suits would keep us dry and warm. Thankfully mine and Errol’s did the trick but PETA’s make have has a leak near her neck and within minutes she was feeling the freezing water inside her suit.

There was a bit of an art to manoeuvring around the water while trying to ensure water didn’t make its way into your suit around your neck and head. This activity was meant to be below the Northern Lights but the weather and cloud cover prohibited us from seeing anything. However it was still quite relaxing lying back and looking up to the tree tops and dark Winter sky.

Unfortunately there was a group of four younger Greek people keen to turn this relaxing activity into an active fun event with yelling and splashing about. It did take away from the experience for me.

The survival suits we wore enable people lost at sea to survive in the freezing waters for a few days but after about fifteen minutes the cool started to seep through the suit and I was happy when it was time to hop out. Although that was a very undignified and amusing process for me as I couldn’t control where my body floated and couldn’t get my boots down. Thankfully Errol helped me through the process.

Poor Peta, when we got out of our suits discovered her entire top was wet as she had taken in a lot of water. Not pleasant for her at all. Errol also got a bit of the freezing cold water in his suit as well.

Once we managed to gracefully remove our suits we ventured into the nearby teepee to sit around the fire and enjoy some hot juice and smores. It was a nice way to warm up before heading back to our hotel.

This was yet another amazing experience and it was a pity Brad couldn’t take part inLæs mere