Finally, some fine sailing. They say that cruising in small yachts is great 1% of the time, tolerable in 30% while the rest is miserable. Our 2 day passage from Bornholm to Klaipeda in Lithuania gave us that long-awaited 1% – beam winds steady in strength and direction, dry decks and clear skies. We and the Aries were delighted.
Klaipeda is the ramshackle post-Soviet port I remember from Tainui’s last visit. Maxine, Pasha and Tatiana, taken on a Soviet walk down memory lane, were amazed and horrified.
Sadly, our fine Russian friends leave us here. We have done quite a number of cheerful sea miles with them and we shall miss them. For me their departure brings 2 benefits – firstly, I am no longer excluded from endless and incomprehensible cockpit chatter in Russian; secondly, the cockpit is no longer taken up with their lengthy morning ritual of insufferable Russian breakfasts. But as always those were prices I have always been more than willing to pay.
From here, we have a 200 mile bash north against northerlies to Estonia. From Tallinn, I expect the malicious, all-knowing weather god will turn his breeze into an easterly in the Gulf of Finland. There you go.
