Estonia
25 June 2014 | words by Jayne
At 4 am on 21st June we left Liepaja in time to watch the solstice sun rise at 4.21am, we enjoyed a lovely full day sailing to the largest Estonian island of Saaremaa, a beautiful Island surrounded by protected nature reserves, it was great to see so many birds there and even a seal popped it's head up. We arrived just before the sunset at 10.31pm and had a walk along the little beach close by. Whilst in Saaremaa we visited Kaali village, home to 9 meteorite craters, the largest is 110 meters in diameter and 22 meters deep, and was formed between 4000 and 7600 years ago.
After a couple of days around the stunning Western Estonian islands weather dictated that we needed to head on to Tallinn, which was a real shame as the nature there is amazing, one of those places we will definitely return to and explore in greater detail one day. Tallinn is a beautiful city to explore sadly it is spoilt by the crazy amount of souvenir shops and is a little over commercialised. There is a great little puppet museum in town and Rick and Julie an American couple who were sailing in the rally asked if they could take Lily, we had fun making up our own puppet shows and seeing the hundreds of puppets on display this was followed by an organised meal with the other rally participants.
After weeks of visiting mostly cities we were in need of some nature, after a little research Jayne contacted a local naturalist specialising in birds and flowers, and arranged a day out exploring the Orchids and Birds of Estonia. Inga and Adrian two of the rally attendees agreed to join us and we set off on a day away from civilisation. We saw some of the most amazing sites, 8 species of Orchid some of which are so rare in the UK they can only be seen in 1 or 2 locations. We managed to glimpse a White Tailed Sea Eagle, Montague's Harrier and the very rare sight of a Penduline Tit nest along with the parents back and forth feeding their young. We ended the memorable day with a delicious Vegan meal back in Tallinn.
Sadly Jonny had to leave us in Tallinn after 7 weeks with us and we were back to just the 3 of us after months of having crew onboard. Soon after we were ready to head off to our 11th country of the year Finland.