Ice breakers navigating the Gulf of Bothnia have been astounded at the record spread of ice on the Baltic Sea, while scientists say they have never seen anything like it.

"Since record keeping began in the sixties, we've never encountered anything like this before," ice breaker Ulf Gulldne told the local newspaper Örnsköldsviks Allehanda.

 On March 29th, 176,000 square kilometers of the Baltic Sea was covered in ice, a record for the time of year. On a map, it means about half of the central and northern parts are frozen over. Far north, the ice is both thick and difficult to break through.

 The date on which the ice reaches its maximum spread usually falls much earlier in the year. The previously latest date record was March 25th, 2008. That year, only 49,000 square kilometeres of the Baltic was covered in ice, which was the smallest maximum spread of ice in the previous 100 years.

 "I've never seen this much ice this late in the season," said Karl Herlin, captain of the icebreaker Atle, currently working off the coast of Luleå in northern Sweden.

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