Dea Latis Travelogue

Pirita harbour works as a showroom for contrasts and time machinery again. 60+ feet yachts compete for attention with broken everything, new Eastern style luxury cars and old Eastern style luxury and scrap cars. Here Exhibits A and B for the cars, one old (s)crap Lada and one old but very well maintained luxury Chaika.

All suited up in micro-this and Gore-that we opened the season with a traditional trip to Tallin. Grainy Friday morning changed into ever so slight sun for a couple of hours halfway, but both air and water temperature kept things from heating up.

Pirita harbour is empty as never seen before, we’re literally the only boat in the guest harbour.

The heatwave continues, exelent wacation weather, big contrast to last year. Calm and quiet in the semicrowded marina of Kejsarhamn @ Högsåra in the Archipelago sea.

Sent from my HTC

Football wc on the agenda, traditional midsummer (every 4th year)

Sent from my HTC

This season opened a bit late with a traditional trip to Tallinn. Weather forecast for the weekend was a grim 10 degrees C “warmth”, high probability of rain, and 10-15 m/s. The outbound leg on Friday was indeed all of that.

As a reward we decided to dine at Chedi, the Estonian offspring of London’s Michelin starred Hakkasan and Yauatcha by restaurateur Alan Yau. The interior design was awesome with lots of stone, and the food was exquisite. Yau’s special fame is for the dim sum, and these didn’t let down. Friday evening then continued with traditional BonBon, and the likewise traditional “can you guess what drink it is I just ordered for you” game…

During Saturday morning the wind increased drastically. The lady shook and stomped around in the Pirita harbour basin, making an already otherwise weak head and stomach no good. Reports from Helsingfors indicated wind speeds of healthy 21-22 m/s, but fortunately the forecast for Sunday was decreasing.

After a very silent and peaceful Saturday we headed back into town to get some food. We first checked out the menu for Tchaikovsky but weren’t impressed. An old favourite in the shape of the Georgian/Caucasian Must Lammas restaurant rescued us from starvation. The highlight of the evening was the spicy lamb soup, drenched in pepper, garlic, and coriander.

Sunday saw winds calm down as forecasted, and while the temperature left a whole lot to ask for, only sprinkles of rain and moderate waves made the return leg uneventful although chilly.

Sunny warm morning at Naissaar. The trip over was nice, the rain stopped right when we left, but then again so did the wind, so only one hour sailing and 5 by enginepower, pitty as it was Piius and Pasis first sailingtrip. Tallin next, with the traditional programme…

Waking up after a quite long and somewhat animated night, the canal and lagoon of Älgsjölandet was bathing in sunshine. Brunch was organised on deck for those awake, and background music for those that weren’t quite awake yet… It got so hot on deck that jumping into the sea was the only right next step. The water wasn’t even cold, so after fooling around in the water and climbing on the mooring ropes, the boat got herself a waterside scrub. Until the brush was lost, that is. Later a traditional excursion along the nature trail followed, this time without spotting any deer, only cows.

On the trip back we got to sail a bit, before the wind died out on us again. The gennaker was up when sailing across the Porkala fjärd driving us towards Källviken peacefully. In Källviken a nasty surprise awaited us. The burning wood for the grill was still (since beginning of the summer) quite sour, so it took quite a while and a lot of wood chopping efforts to get any kind of fire going. Eventually it got off, and we got to prepare a real meat sausage fiesta.

The same D28 that was spotted at Älgsjölandet was also here, and this time I got to speak with the owners. They had changed the fixed blade propeller for a folding one, and it had gained them 0.5 knots cruising speed. This pretty much validated our estimates, and it seems that a folding propeller goes on next season’s shopping list.

After the longer main crew trip followed a 36 hour shore leave, and mixing up of following crews. On Tuesday a crew of yours truly, Bägä, and Bobby set sails, Bobby for the first time in a sailing boat. The course was set for Älgsjölandet in Barösund in nice sunny weather but weak winds.

The first part we went by engine, but after a re-fueling stop at Dragesviken (and meeting a crew relative in the somewhat zigzag fairway onwards), we hoisted sails when getting out on the Porkala fjärd. The speed we got was, alas, only 2 knots, so after a couple of minuts sails came down again.

Älgsjölandet was quite empty and very different than last time at Midsummer. Among the guest were spotted both a D33 and a sister D28. That night’s grilling material was a 2 kg lamb steak rubbed in NoMU spice mix, and it turned out to be absolutely delicious.

The Melges 24 Nordic Championships in Tallinnn were concluded after 16.00 on Sunday, after which preparations for returning Dea Latis to her base commenced. Continuing the tradition of anykindofweatherrandomly that was trademarked during the races, the weather shifted back and forth during the sail over the Gulf of Finland back to Esbo.

The dominating kind of weather, however, was sunshine and too little wind to sail. The sunshine part was nice, because it also meant we saw a beautiful moon rising over the sea, settling over Tallinn, and sinking back when arriving at 01.30 on Sunday night.

Before that we had our first visit by a seal during the whole trip, which was very nice. When the dusk spread, we also started seeing lightnings over basically all land, north, east and south. Impressive show!