another season in the Baltic
Well ahoy there sailors!! I am your guest blogger for today… Ian and I joined Karen and William on their Baltic adventure last Sunday and we’ve been having fun in the sun… and rain..😱 Finland is an awesome place and exploring the islands has been lovely. The sunsets have been incredible – and it never […]
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We’ve been in Finland for about a week, and we have crew! Ian and Mary joined us in Porvoo, Finland’s second oldest town, and at one time an important port. It is full of pretty painted wooden houses, lined along a peaceful river. Lots of tourists visit on day trips from Helsinki, some by bus […]
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Before arriving in Tallinn, we contacted a young sailmaker, Oleg, who was happy to repair the torn stack pack. It’s not that difficult to remove it once the mainsail is well tied up with a pile of sail ties, but the key thing is to hold on tight to the lazy-jack lines that hold it […]
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So, Melodrama made her way into the Port Ops zone of the capital city of Estonia, Tallinn. It’s a beautiful, UNESCO protected medieval city, and one of the big destinations for cruise ships. Combined with the commercial tankers, cargo, and container ships coming and going, it made for very busy waters, closely policed by harbour […]
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Three days in Kardla, with a strong easterly gale, dramatic lightning and thunder, and torrential rain – what’s not to like! The young harbour master and his staff were very disappointed that they had no Irish flag for our visit, and insisted that we must come back on our way home, and they would definitely […]
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There is a local history museum in Kuressaare Castle, which shows the islands of Estonia emerging from the sea over only the last 10,000 years or so at the end of the ice age. A mere instant in geological time! The new land is therefore low-lying and very flat – great for cycling! But the […]
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So it was, with trepidation, that we made our way into Estonian waters, expecting at any moment to be boarded by officialdom, and marched off to the county court to pay our Ensign fine. The contrast could not be more extreme. Our first call was Kuressaare, where the harbour master had hoisted a huge Irish […]
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This story began weeks ago in Sweden, but it’s time to go public. We were in Ystad harbour one morning, when a yacht flying the ‘red duster’ standard UK red ensign was leaving port. ‘Ahoy!’ he cried sociably, ‘What’s your yacht club?’ ‘Fahan, Donegal in Ireland’ we replied, sociably. ‘Well’ he said, not so sociably, […]
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Ventspils, Latvia, an old oil and petrochemical port, very important in the days when Russia ruled in Latvia, and our first landfall in the Baltic States. The yacht harbour is in at the back of the fishing port, well out of the way of the big boats, but has decent facilities, and a helpful harbour-master. […]
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In the last week, the weather has been very variable. Every other day, there is a good weather window to clock up some sea miles to the next destination, but then 30 knot squalls dominate for the following day. Saturday was one of those days, so we got out the bikes, took Bodilla the free […]
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We love AIS. On the chart plotter, as Melodrama sails along, little triangles with dotted extension lines show approaching vessels, and warn us if we might need to take avoiding action. It’s just interesting sometimes to look them up, as they transmit their size, type of vessel, and destination, as well as speed and direction. […]
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