There is rotten ice along the shores of Finland, but in the Bay of Bothia ice still has more character and thickness. The coast has still fast ice in most places, but out on the sea is a strange tapestry of different types of ices. The very close or compact ice is the dominant one, which can be up to 80 cm thick, but there is other ones, too judging by the daily ice report. And under the ice cover, our plastic wrapper continues its’ journey.

The currents have kept the wrapper in motion, even though it has not drifted that much in the past 4 weeks, just 80 km. April is still season in the region, so the wrapper has not drifted that far, when compared to our other pieces of marine litters out in open, ice-free seas. But the high season of ice winter is over and one Finnish ice breaker has returned to its home port in Helsinki. However, there is still 5 others and three colleagues from Sweden operating in the area. They are needed to keep the shipping channels open and goods flowing to and from the region. But once the sea ice coverage decreases, also our wrapper can enjoy freedom of the open seas. In four weeks we will find out, if our wrapper has managed to escape the icy prison of the Bothnian Bay and has headed to southern seas…