Winter on the Wadden sea!

In the Northern part of the Netherlands we have the Wadden Sea. That's an inland sea stretching from the southern part of Denmark all the way to the island of Texel in the Netherlands. Approximately 500 kilometers in length and about 20 kilometers wide.

This sea is 3/4 part tidal area. That means a lot of mud flats, sandbanks and swampie like marshes. Its a very popular place for nature photographers in the Netherlands!

In the winter the northern part of the Netherlands is usually also the coldest part and that means the sea wil frees up and because of the tides you get lots of pretty ice formations.

Wintercamping on a farm field! 

So i jumped in my VW camper van and drove to the province of Friesland, set my van up at a farmer's place who rents part of his land to camper van users. I was alone there. Not strange mid winter. It was already dark but the farmer insisted that he wanted to show me around a bit. His property bordered a river and beside the river there where also places to park the van. I decided to park near the stables because that was a bit more out of the wind. 

The following morning it was cold, very cold and i wanted to clear the ice from the outside of my van. When i got out of the van I already saw the red ligt of the sun coming above the horizon. Than I saw the outside of my windows where ice free... Al the ice was inside the van... It was really cold that night, minus 15 Celsius so every condense of my breath froze up on the inside.

Last preps! 

It was stil 2 hours before sunrise but had to hurry because i still had to drive 20 minutes to the location, dress my self up for the cold weather and walk for 15 minutes to te location. I have 1 thermo underwear, 1 trouser and 1 wind stopper to protect me from the cold. the windstopper is very strong so i can crawl over the ice. When I was on a photography trip in Iceland I bought myself Icelandic sweaters and gloves. underneath that was one sweater and 1 thermo longsleef. Boots and socks and ice straps.  Time management is not my strongest point so i spiked the coffee...

And this is what i saw....

I was extremely happy on the drive to the location because the sky looked pretty good. On location I felt like I was a child in a candy store. Old posts from breakwaters sticking out of the ice.

And nice pileups of ice like this.

the coast has been swept away by the sea and in the distance is a small church on the dike.

I was very lucky to got a sunrise like this. I did lookt at all the weather reports but you never know what you get. And this morning was awesome. This made my trip so valuable!  

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