We weren’t in a hurry on Sunday morning, since we only had a short hop planned. The wind was light in the morning, but by the time we hoisted our sails around twelve, we had a great breeze going.

Naissaare is a historic island for many reasons. It seems that it has been first mentioned in writing almost 1000 years ago, and permanent settlement seems to have been around for about 600 years. The other thing is of course its history during the Soviet era. Naissaare had a more or less secret facility for building naval mines, and it might have been the biggest of its kind in the Soviet Union. During that time, civilians didn’t have any business on the island. Today, the island is a nature reserve, and a beautiful one at that. Just watch the sand or you’ll have it everywhere.

The dogs were badly in need of a longer walk after a couple of lazy days, one rainy and one hot, so we decided to take one of the trails. We settled the blue trail, which takes you to the southern part of the island and via the old mine factory site. We were told that it would take a couple of hours, but we made the most of it and took three.

Here’s what we saw.