Sailing in cold January - fighting icing

My watch ended at midnight then I went to my usual 6 hours rest time leaving the ship with the chief Officer.
We were sailing north in the Gulf of Bothnia between Sweden in Finland heading towards Oulu. There was no sign of icing anywhere on the ship and the sea was quite calm and not frozen.

At 5:30 this morning I woke up to this

It took only 3 hours of waves and minus temperatures to freeze the whole ship, and now the pain starts.
The hatches need to be open so we can discharge and load again but that was impossible before getting rid of the pile of ice on top of the hatches and the lifts so everyone grab a hammer and start to knock. 6 am we started and at 8pm we weren't done even yet but finally at midnight the steam truck arrived and helped us in melting the crucial parts.

Next 3 days were just physical long days of just smashing ice in -15 degrees temperature, mooring lines were impossible to coil, emergency water pipes if weren't emptied then they have exploded but fortunately in the end of the day the sunset was beautiful with all the white ice around and the ship looked pretty

I hope you enjoyed, I try to keep my posts short and easy, follow for more to come about diaries from sea.