Terra Feminarium really put out its best in the morning. No need to hurry, since you couldn’t see the buoys about 50 m away. So we had another late start, waiting for the fog to clear and hoping for the wind picking up.

Before setting off, we had some medical details to attend. Peppi the sheltie has developed some sort of rash and keeps gnawing on her paws. No amount of bandaid or sticky-tape can  prevent her from ripping her bandages off. So the captain had to fix a collar, since the one we have, is at home of course. And Peppi really loves her new collar. But it works. What can’t the captain fix or build?

Around eleven, we thought it had cleared enough to warrant risking it. Visibility was over 1 NM when we cast off, and there was a positive breeze that moved us along at over 3 kn. Not the fastest way to move, but we only had roughly 20 NM to our next destination, Lohusalu.

After clearing the southern tip of Naissaare, it became clear that this would not be an easy leg. The wind was really light, it came from completely the wrong direction and the fog actually thickened on the western side of the island. Visibility ranged from fifty to five hundred metres, within seconds. Just imagine those movies, where it is really eery and quiet at sea, for example the opening scene of Pirates of the Caribbean. All we could hear was some waves from our own bow. Then suddenly from out of nowhere, a great huge tanker sits right to your port. Just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared back into the fog. Even though it was lying at anchor, you could here its generators running and smell the exhaust. The captain nearly shit himself. Just imagine if the thing was moving…. And there was really no time to take pictures, even though we have the camera at arms length. Oh, where art though, my GoPro Hero 4 Silver …?

Obviously, coming from Naissaare, the old naval mine factory, we couldn’t escape the mine scare. Here’s one small floating surface scare. Luckily we passed it at a safe distance.

Soon, we lost all wind, in the middle of crossing a fairway. Volvo to the rescue, yet again. With the engine on, you can hear even less. The direction of sound is distorted in the fog anyway, so what’s the point of listening? Luckily, the VHF stayed very quiet.

After crossing the lanes and getting within 10 miles of Lohusalo, the wind picked up again, so we hoisted our sails. What’s better than sailing in fog? A light drizzle and fog. What’s even better- well a fog and an apocalyptic rain, of course. Even though COG and SOG were just what we wanted, visibility and humidity were lacking. By the time we got to Lohusalu, the skipper was drenched. Out with Gill, in with the new Musto gear purchased a few days prior to departure.

Just outside Lohusalu harbour, the wind was about 9 m/s (18-20 kn), but entering the harbour, everything became still. Except for the rain which continued for another couple of hours. What a perfect harbour. The harbour master was out welcoming us and we quickly tied in. As you can see from the top image, the harbour master has a great view.

It was great to take a nice warm shower, with a nice hot sauna, in what looked like a brand new service building. The optimist-juniors we saw practising while coming in, really have a great place to change and warm up after trainings.

Later in the evening we went for a short walk and this is really an idyllic place.

After this, all we really wanted to do, was to dry our stuff and go to bed. The forecast for the next day was rather light, so we had to be away early.