Skiing the Planet

Sunday, August 1, 2021

Everyone is surprised that the car is broken again

... not

It *is* leaking oil. Sigh.

Fortunately we got a loaner car for the weekend at least, and some hope of the guys at the shop having time to look at my car on Monday.

Still adding oil

Last week we fixed the car's braking system by adding more oil. Now the light is on, and I keep adding oil. Now a bit more. Light is off, fingers crossed!

Uh oh brakes...

The brake failure light just come on, and we are still 200 km from home. Uh oh...

Update: the next day: This time the fix was easy — no real breakage (just regular brakage) the brake fluid was just getting low. No leaks!

Today's exercise was to visit a beach in Westend, Espoo, where I had not been to before. Unfortunately, the beach was marked as having blue-green algae, and it also looked unpleasantly slimy. But then it turned out that there is a small rocky peninsula, and a pier on it. The water there was a bit more cleaner looking. So I was able to swim!

But oh... what a sunset one could see from the pier!

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other swimmers on a beach, and try to visit at times where there is simply no one else around.

Desperately seeking Sus... beach without blue-green algae

Lauttasaari, such a nice place. They even have a backup beach on the other side if the one beach is covered by slimy algae!

First, I visited the Veijarivuoren uimaranta, a beach in Lauttasaari. Way too much algae. As I was returning to the car, I realised however that there was another possible beach on a different, more westernly direction. Perhaps it would not have algae? Checking... it turned out that this beach was kind of a small boat harbour and not an official beach, but with an easy, sandy beach where one could get to the water. Water was quite clear. Swimming mission for the day accomplished!

The place in Särkiniemi is around coordinates E 60.147102 N 24.876561. Do not assume my swimming places are always easy to visit or safe. Be aware and swim safely!

Särkiniemi:

Veijarivuori:

Puotila beach by the subway

Today I had an opportunity to be in eastern Helsinki, and chose to stop by another new beach, at the Puotilan uimaranta (Puotila Beach). It is right by subway line and therefore easily accessible.

A nice beach, shallow and good sand far into the sea. Coordinates for the beach are N 60.209049 E 25.110086.

Right across the channel where the beach is there is another beach on the other side, the Rastilan uimaranta. Haven't been there yet, though.

Both beaches are maintained by the city of Helsinki.

Another visit to Högberget

New signs lead visitors to the right place! Well done, Ratsutila Wikner!

The Högberget cave is an exceptional, rare form, and well worth visiting. But while close to the road, it is not necessarily easy to find. The markings and the new parking lot make it a lot easier, thank you!

You can find more information about Högberget from here and here and here.

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Saturday, July 31, 2021

July skiing done at the last moment

This month's skiing - check. Falling & road rash - check. Edges didn't work so well on rock.

Not the best ski run, two feet vertical. But, real snow. And a turn, even if it was a failed one. Have to go by what you can actually get. Not so many options on July 31st. Maybe bigger slopes in August.

Why I need a lot of snow space in my car:

Saturday, July 10, 2021

First 3D modelling of Lummelunda Grottan

Earlier this week I visited the caver's camp in Lummelunda in Gotland. What a wonderful event, happy to be able to go there again! One of things I did was to see if I could build a 3D model of the cave using LiDAR in the newest iPhones. I was able to start the project at least, here are some early results of the 450 meters or so that I modelled.

This is very, very early and unsatisfactory material in many ways. For starters, I covered only a part of the cave. And this tech is still very much at the bleeding edge. The most serious problem is that the app I am using kept crashing when processing texture data in big scans, and therefore only half of texture data of the model (surface photographic material) survived. In addition, the sensor had trouble registering water as a surface, and big parts of the cave are covered by water. Then there are countless artefacts and mistakes, missing surfaces, joins are not exact, sometimes a scan of a part ends up in a fake wall even there isn't one, complex parts are messy, etc.

Still, pretty interesting, and in many parts there's an amazing level of detail. I particularly love the ability to see the rock forms on the outside skin of the model. For me, this reveals more about the cave than I usually am able to see on the site itself.

I'm very happy that I was able to experiment with this!

Your browser may be able to rotate a model on your own screen, at least recent versions of Safari and Chrome should be able to do it. Try it for fun!

The non-textured version of the model can be also downloaded, if you want to play with yourself. The GLB version is here, Blender version here, and STL here.

The opening picture above is a detail of the model around the four-way intersection between the clay tunnel from the Sandbanken (lower left), crawling tunnel (upper left), tunnel to Sump 1 (right), and tunnel to Hästryggen (lower right). Note the Finska Gruvan, a tiny, newly found hole at the top of the picture. I did not go all the way in, as it typically has bad air. Also note the joins that you can see in the four-way intersection. For practical and software limit purposes the model is built of 20-50 meter parts which are then joined in postprocessing using Blender.

The below picture is what the insides of the model look like when the texture happens to be in place. Note that this is not a photo, it is a part of the model that I can rotate, fly through, etc. The location is standing at the Sandbanken, viewing away from the sandy beach and to the curving tunnel that leads towards Torget.

View of the entire modelled area:

This article has also been published at TGR. Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Another two new lakes -swimming day

Yet another day with not just one but two new lakes to swim at!

And they were wonderful. Far into Kirkkonummi, these places are not so well known or popular, but of course with the heatwave there were quite many people. But both were stellar, both had ample green areas for playing and picniqueing, a very nice lake. The Karskog one actually also had a cliff area with a jumping tower as well.

Karskog: N 60.185359 E 24.263682

Storträsk: N 60.191487 E 24.339876