TWO desperate skiers have used ice chunks to spell out SOS after a frozen bay broke under them while asleep.
The stricken German couple were camping on the frozen Bothnian Bay when the ice cracked in the middle of the night.
The “experienced” pair were trekking about 100miles across the frozen sea between Oulu, Finland, and Luleå, Sweden.
They set up a tent on what they thought was solid ice to spend the night.
But the ice began to break up while they slept and nearly all of their gear plunged into the sub-Arctic water.
They managed to scramble to more solid ice, and sounded the alarm using a radio beacon around 6.30am.
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Sea Rescue Center Åbo received the emergency call and the West Finland Coast Guard rushed to their rescue.
“Weather conditions in the area were very challenging,” the guard wrote in a statement.
“Airplanes from both Sweden and Finland participated in the search.
“The individuals have been located and rescued.”
When found around 11.450am, the couple were “of course cold” but in good condition.
The pair had already spent one night on the ice prior to the accident, as reported by Finnish outletMTV News.
The Bothnian Bay is the northernmost part of the Baltic Sea.
Relatively shallow with low salinity, it typically freezes over for up to half of each year.
According to the Finnish news channel MTV News, the rescue operation took place last Tuesday.
The Germans reportedly intended to cross the part of the Baltic Sea that is usually frozen at this time of year on skis, according to Bild.