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Santa Maria - Tallin and Tallin - Petersburg



We arrived in Tallin early in the morning in the foggiest weather, all of a sudden a wall rose in front of us, standing at the rudder it was quite unexpected, as I was reckoning it would take a few minutes more. We had reached Pirita harbour, as we entered we had no idea on which side to harbor, obviously I took the wrong direction up the river, until I saw a vessel with the ARC- Flags alongside in the other part of the port. I wasn't bothered, it gave me the opportunity to "cruise" around  in port. Finally we found a place to berth, I was then told to  complete the I maneuver, which I proudly completed to the skippers fullest satisfaction! It seems I don't need any naval patents, as every sailing Swiss, or German for that case, I must have it in the genes?

Tallinn was there to be discovered, in many ways a nice and quiet capital. And for sure they knew what we get for an Euro in the rest of the EC, a pity, that the quality not always stood to the prize tag! But why bother when you have signed for six weeks of boating in the narrowest conditions?

The historical development, exposed by our tourist guide and most importantly through Hans's exposés gives the whole tour another dimension.

In Tallinn we had a major change in the crew, only Elmar and myself stayed for the next legs, thanks to the departed crew members, Skip Reinhardt, Angelika, Philipp, Jörg and Hans, we had a in many ways particular journey, Sharing it with you made it very special.

In the meantime a new crew has emerged, a new finding-each- other  process has taken place, there is potential for fun here too, good for me!

Heading for St Petersburg

On departure from Tallinn we got some unexpected winds close to shore, that was certainly an exiting start for the newcomers, which all were eager to grasp to the rudder and conquer the wind, as it was there. This wasmade possible after rescuing a couple of fenders. These exercises gave the new Skip an idea on how  to set up the watch plan. Consulting the time schedule and our progress, and knowing that we couldn't harbor in the EU, having exited the EU through the Estonian custom we found our selves a nice place to anchor in the darkest part of the night. Since then we sailed a couple of miles until the wind disappeared completely. In one way sad that we have to motor for days, which SantaMaria now does very reluctantly, on the other side lots of time on sundeck, writing blogs!

Since my swollen knee has improved considerably, I don't feel obliged towards my team to write on the blog anymore. But sailors, also "möchte gern" ones seems to be a lazy kind of person or only very old fashioned, not knowing what a blog is?

Is the excitement rising as we are
Approaching the Russian waiting area? Is it going to be like entering Switzerland for lorrydrivers?
What about Russia it self?

To know more about this, stay tuned
You might get some excerpts of this in the next episode

Regards
Erik, the not so red herring

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