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Longbow of Argyll - Baltic Rally 6: Gotland to Tallin



We had an "interesting" departure out of Visby: strongish winds, lots of simultaneously-departing yachts, a huge tall ship coming into dock and a high speed ferry trying to depart all at roughly the same time! Ted and Jane did an admirable job of steering us in circles in the inner harbour until we spotted our chance to duck under the stern of the "Sea Cloud II". We'd just pulled the main up in the outer harbour when we noticed the ferry starting to move... But after a few tense moments the ferry rapidly pulled away well ahead of us and off we sailed.

We had a wonderful 50 mile spinnaker-up sail north to Gotska Sandon, an island national park with a large seal population. We anchored off to NE point at around 5 pm for a few hours to explore a bit of the island and go for a swim (Jane and Clare), then ate a swift dinner and headed back off into the sunset with spinnaker flying.

We had a lovely gentle sail overnight in the company of a few other sailing boats, a Tallink ferry and a few container ships. The wind sadly dropped off during the next day and eventually we had to turn on the engine. The fog rolled in during night #2 and we had to watch the radar like hawks as the visibility was 100m and we were near the shipping channel.

Near sunrise the mist lifted for a few magic moments to reveal Tallin's dreaming spire-clad skyline before rolling in again. Luckily the mist lifted permanently for the last few miles and we had an easy run into the harbour. We're now stern-to on the dock and having to walk the plank to get ashore.

Posted by Clare

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