After Gotland the plan has been to sail East over the Baltic to Estonia, and to a town called Haapsalu, about 100 kilometres West of Tallinn.
We set off in the early morning of Wednesday from Gotland. Important was to make our destination before evening Thursday due to strong wind and rain moving in. The passage is 180 miles, first over the open sea and then navigating through the archipelago of Hiiumaa and Saaremaa.
West Estonia Archipelago
The forecast was light Northwesterlies and later backing West so not the fastest conditions, but with up to 36 hours set aside for the trip we would be hard put not to get in to harbour before the bad weather.
As actually played out we had really fast conditions the whole day and night of Wednesday, and the light conditions only arrived the following morning, but even then they were short lived, and we ended up with a text-book perfect passage and made harbour in good time.
Keeping watch. Sighted another sailing boat.
The strong wind did come in and a lot of rain too. The boat was safely moored up in harbour, but all of us got caught out in the evening when walking in to town to find a pub and have a few drinks. We got back to the boat at mid-night, and all of us soaking wet from the rain! Fortunately there is a fantastic sauna provided in the marina at Haapsalu, perfect for a cold stormy night!
The next day we visited Tallinn. The old walled city has what I would call the perfect castle architecture. Just the right stone and colours for a proper medieval castle! It was very nice to walk around and see the old historic city.
Part of Tallinn’s city walls
We also changed crew in Tallinn as Giacomo had to leave, and Biying joined the boat.
Next trip is planned to be a weeks cruising in West Estonia archipelago. I’ll post again and write about what interesting places we find.
