July 10, 2007-- On route to Lohusalu, the largest hornet I've seen in my life landed just a foot from Con. The circle is about the size of a Canadian nickle to give you a comparison in size. (He was tucking his tail in too, because I'd scared him.) His size was about 4-5 cm. Later we learned that this is an endangered species and in Germany it's a 50,000 Euro fine to kill it! I lifted it with the boat hook and it left our boat.


Albertine filled up on blue berries in the forest. This boat didn't follow the designated route.



July 9, 2007 -- About 6 a.m., we were mopping the hugh puddle of rain that came through the bathroom window that we left open during the nights wild rain ownpour. By 9 a.m., the mechanic was in the engine room making the decision that the generator had simply run out of diesel. We untied, and motored to the tax-free pump and within 20 minutes, we'd put $10,000 EEK (CND$1000.00) on our Visa for the diesel. We spent the rest of the day hiking from one bus stop to another dodging serious puddles and tidal waves of splashes from the vehicles. Yesterday, Con and Albertine set out on foot and captured these photos.

Tallinn, Estonia's capital city has a great mix of old and new history as seen in their architect. The Medieval Old Town is well preserved, and just behind you can see the Russian cold concrete buildings dominating a section of the city. We met a woman yesterday who was so disappointed that we couldn't take her with us across to Canada. She is a second generation implanted Russian during the time when Russian tried to Russificate Estonia. Tallinn has 400,000 people living within the small city, which makes it feel a lot like a busy village. See the photo albums

July 7, 2007 -- Albertine arrived yesterday, and her luggage followed a day later. Below, Albertine is just stepping off the bus; Con is anxiously awaiting.

We're docked beside the 1980 Olympic Flame, accessable to all tourists and people walking by. Last night, we stayed up talking in the pilot house until nearly midnight. About 11:45 p.m., we heard really loud crashing sound and joked about our motorboat neighbours having a wild party. Turns out they were robbed of everything, including his used underwear! Big Sky has an alarm system on it, and we double and triple lock everything day and night. Today, everyone looks suspicious. A woman walked by with her companion taking pictures of Big Sky with her camera poised low at her hip. I quickly stepped outside and gave them my best evil eye. Next time, I'm getting our camera out and will take pictures of them taking pictures of us!




July 6, 2007 -- Con was the hero of the marina today! A group of people arrived about 10 a.m. from an overnight sail from Helsinki. They hooked their line on a buoy sharing it with another boat, and proceeded to back over their line causing their propellor to seize with a major chuck of the line tightly wound around it. About a dozen people, including Con tried to keep the boat from smashing into the other boats around it, as it had no engine power. At a certain point Con said: "Someone is going to have to go in the water." Everyone looked terrified at the idea. Con turned to me and said: "Barb, get my snorkle."

About 30 minutes later, in 15 degree water, Con managed to untangle the boat line from the buoy and then after a number of dives, was able to free the line from their prop. He was shivering and I was afraid (as others) that'd he'd have hypothermia. I told the doctor's wife, who was concerned to know if Con had any health issues. I said, yes, "he won't quit until the job is done!" He managed to free the boat and came in purple, for a warm shower. A moment later, we lost our electricity and then our generator seized. Con continually worked on projects today. We're shutting down to go get Albertine from the bus stop, our first visitor to Big Sky!



This little guy is an excellent fisher. He's come to our railing for the past two days about 5 p.m. and dives for his dinner. We think he's a Common Tern.

July 5, 2007 -- Our marina is located in Pirita a small beach community within biking distance to Taillon. We're staying 50 yards from the 1980 Olympic torch. This marina was built for the 1980 Olympic's held in Moscow, Russia, as Estonia was at that time under Russian rule. We biked from Pirita to Taillon and roamed around the Medieval "Old Town" today. The Estonians are celebrating Medieval Week in Taillon and all the merchants are dressed in peasant to Maid Marrian and Robin Hood clothing.



July 3, 2007 -- Crossing the Baltic Sea we thought about the chaos that happened on these waters during WWII with submarines, battleships, mines, and bombers. Our route crossed a number of areas designated "mine fields," thankfully, the area had been swept in the late 80's as part of a clean-up plan. The wind was non-existant, so we motored over the glassy water. Click to see the video. About two hours out of Vergi, Estonia, our engine quit. Con has been hoping to have the fuel tanks cleaned, but he's been unable to find someone who does that. We opened the jib and brought her speed to about 2.5 knots, but within 15 minutes, Con had the engine going again. (Old fuel.) We entered the Vergi Harbour which has a shallow, narrow entrance. We were to stay exactly on the water-road-way, (but there are no road lines) and we monitored our depth meter. It read 4.3 meters, 3 and then err, 2.2 (we're 2.2 meters). We were temporarily stuck in the murky bottom, Con backed 'er up and we realigned ourselves with the land markers and tied successfully to the tail end of a dock.
Where we touched the bottom

Con pulled out the bikes and we searched for a restaurant, and we had to go to another village 4 kilometers away to find one. Having just arrived in Estonia, we didn't have any Kroon, and the restaurant told us their VISA was broken. We walked around the outside tables asking the patrons if they could exchange Euro for Kroon.

A German man (seated to the far right in the photo) smiled and said "sure." Good thing, we were hungry. See "Baltic States" for information about this region.

July 1, 2007 -- Happy Canada day! This is our last day in Finland, a country which we've totally enjoyed from the people, smoked fish, (for Con the herring), the 19-hour daylight, to the nightly sauna's. Tomorrow morning bright and early, we plan to catch a 7-8 knot wind south to Estonia, hoping to arrive the latter part of the afternoon. I should be able to post pictures in a few more days... long story about my Fireworks program so I won't bore you.

June 29, 2007 -- We left Helsinki yesterday for Kabbole, a mini sized town with one spot for us, alongside a dock. Thankfully, there was no other boat, so we tied up, turned on the generator and had a bowl of soup, made popcorn and watched a movie on my laptop. Leaving bright and early (err, we slept in) we sailed a perfect beam reach to Kotka, Finland, just 50 nautical miles from the Russian border. For $17 Euro, we have electricity, water, and internet. The weather has been rather wet, but when the sun shows itself, we'll tour this city that boasts of having the finest parks in Finland and plenty of rivers and lakes.

June 27, 2007 -- Yesterday, we walked through the Helsinki open market and stopped for a plate of fish and new potatoes with dill, on a flimsy paper plate. It was major competition in the market: massive sized sea gulls against hungry people. The gulls seemed to have a strategy too. One would swoop at the plate, letting their gigantic wings hit their victim's head, while the others would swarm and dive at the plate of herring. Con left his plate in my care to get a napkin. I was seated and hovering over our plates in a canopy covered area when a gull snuck up behind me. He was swooping in and I hovered closer looking up to look him in the eyes. Their beaks are about three inches long, kind of frightening. I won, and didn't feel bad, because they have the whole sea to fish.

June 25, 2007 -- By 6 a.m. we were under sail to Helsinki, on a 77 nautical mile course Con set up the night before. Con loves the challenge of the open water and never feels the stomach-churning sea sickness symptoms. I tried to participate in the sailing, by taking the wheel for about two hours, the rest of the time, I was laid out concentrating on not vomiting. The wind blew Big Sky on a run, which means directly from behind. The trick is to make sure your boat does not do an uncontrolled jibe. That's where the wind surprises you and grabs your main sail and throws it with a furry onto the other side. It's a tricky sail and Con did a stellar job. The waves were following behind us at time three meters high. Big Sky would rise when the wave would crash, leaving us dry but still anticipating a wash to fill through the companion way (the front door).

June 23, 2007 -- Last night was Finland's major holiday celebration "Midsummers Day" in recognition of June 21st, the longest day of the year. Hundreds of kids congregated in Hanko to celebrate by drinking gallons and gallons of beer. They're looking pretty rough today.

See Photo Gallery

Some of our thoughts about living in a foreign place:
It's a privilege to be able to live in a foreign country at least once in your life. We're getting to live in different cities, towns, and hamlets every day, and one different country after another. By July, we'll have lived in our fifth new country in three months (Finland, and it's autonomous Aland Islands, Sweden, Estonia and Latvia). Everything seems to be a new experience. Grocery shopping is meant to be a daily event both in a grocery store (the size of one or two 7-11's) and a stop at an outdoor market for fruits, eggs (not to be kept in the fridge), potatoes (10 different varieties, each one better than the last), smoked, raw, or pickled fish, meats, breads and fresh flowers. In the grocery store, upon studying it, we see there is variety, but the packaging is so small. For instance, flour is packaged in 1 kilogram here, compared to the 10 kilograms at home (10 times the size). Where there may be 5 choices at home, there is one choice here. There are no chocolate chips! If the picture isn't on the package, we don't know what we're getting, and following the cooking instructions is not entirely impossible. The quantity and variety in Canada is something that I've totally taken for granted. Disco seems to be alive and kicking here. Transportation by bike seems to be more popular than by car and we're not sure, but we think the bikes have the right of way. People do not stop for pedestrians. Trying to operate a cell phone in each country is a new learning each time as it changes. Their 911 is 112. European countries live like neighbours. We listen to radio stations delivering news in Finnish, Swedish, Spanish, and German. It gives us such an appreciation for new Canadians arriving in Canada not knowing the language and culture. English is pretty much spoken by everyone. Oh, and pizza seems to be the national food in Finland and it's good. Con couldn't get over the Rudolf Pizza, but didn't have the heart to eat it.



June 22, 2007 -- We wish we weren't so entertaining for the people at the Kasnas dock, but sometimes it's challenging docking Big Sky. Entering the marina, we spotted a potential slip, attached the Finnish stern hook, onto a buoy, I had secured the bow latter before entering, so Con motored toward the dock. I stepped off (down the latter) with the line and quickly attached it to the windward post. Feeling fairly confident all was well, Con turned off Big Sky, tossed me the lee side line, and climbed onto the dock. About that moment, the wind pushed Big Sky's bumpers into the lee side boat's bumpers. Con quickly grabbed the windward line and we both attempted to pull her for a tighter hold, but in a flash, Con slipped on his bare feet landing directly on his butt, about six inches from doing a perfect Cannonball into the Baltic. "Relic" we called him from the lee side boat watched with a sour look, climbed off his boat to show us "how it's done" and retied our lines, exactly the way Con had originally done. We thanked him and went inside for a "Rosti," grated potatoes, eggs, cheese, garlic dish and watched Relic catch one white fish after another for his dinner. We'll leave this morning for Hanko.
June 19, 2007 -- Our last day in Turku, we biked 30K to a Medieval town called Naantali.

A number of woman in the market, either gypsies or Laplanders; a Medieval church

Con put a sterilizing agent into the drinking water on Big Sky and we filled 'er up -- all 1600 litres.



Tonight, we celebrate our last evening in Turku with Kai and Tuula (Nautical owners/inventor) and we set sail south toward Helsinki.

June 17, 2007 -- Our sails collected the winds from the tail end of last night's gale and blew us into Verkan (our favorite island town) on a close haul at 7 knots. The harbour is definitely understated in the info books. We had an hour sauna at 8 p.m., then got ready for the the acoustical guitarist playing that evening in the marina. He bolted out in really bad English, mixed with Finnish, the words to great songs from the 70's. The owner was delighted to see us return to Verkan and treated us to two glasses of wine on the house. I left my seat for a few minutes and Con was fully engaged in an animated conversation with a man who was allegedly telling him funny stories. The only problem was that Con couldn't hear him but he was laughing heartedly. Relieved that I'd returned to translate, I soon realized that he was speaking in Estonian. I translated anyway and we laughed 'till we had tears. Walking back to the boat, at 1 a.m., the sun had set about an hour earlier, but the sky was still a light-grey. Five days remain until "Midsummer Day" (first day of summer) where the Scandinavians celebrate with fervor their all-too-brief summer. We're heading back into Turku this afternoon to finalize a few things, then south to Helsinki area and over to Estonia.


June 15, 2007 -- The bedside alarm went at 5:30 a.m. and we were under sail for Kokar Island, Finland by 6:30 a.m. arriving that night at 9:05 p.m. (just over fifteen hours of sailing). Con had checked four weather and wind resources and determined that leaving early with the predicted south west winds would get us into shelter before the evening's expected gale. Aiming for Kokar on the recommended routing, we were immediately out in the open Baltic. About two hours into our sail, we passed some kind of marker, which seemed to trigger a siren. Fifteen minutes later, an air force plane was circling our boat. Within a few more minutes, from nowhere the navy arrived in combat gear. Driving right up beside us, they shouted for us to "change course immediately to 140 degrees." They were testing missiles! We obeyed. The plane continued to circle us for about an hour or so later.
Swedish Navy Boat

The waves were at times reaching 1.8 meters, and slapping Big Sky's stern. Con was tucked comfortably into the pilot house and I was tucked nicely into bed. The sea sickness preventative watch I was wearing (that causes a pulse to enter my wrist to combat the sickness) wasn't doing its job.
Barb tucked in for 12 hoursRounding the point to Kokar, Immigration people were chasing us down in their boat inquiring with huge smiles from "where" we had come. "Stockholm" we replied. We think they were terribly disappointed and had to put away their dusty immigration papers. So many people see the Canadian flag and get all excited to hear our great adventure about crossing the Atlantic. "Finland" we tell them to their "ohhhh'

Our sail was steady, with a close-haul, then a beam, ending with a broad reach, giving us an average 7.2 knots over our 88.2 nautical miles.

Big Sky settled into Kokar at sunset

The gale arrived at 12:45 and slamming into Big Sky's starboard. Con had secured her with enough lines that we just kept rolled over and continued to sleep like babies as the gale wailed off and on.

June 13, 2007 -- We left the North Sail marina early to catch a glorious wind to Sandhamn Island. The main is in excellent condition now with the repairs.



I motored out of our shallow spot while Con remained on deck untieing the lines. The wind was pushing our stern back toward the shallow water and away from the dock. Con had to leap to get onto Big Sky's starboard, a second later, I turned hard port to miss the trimeran and we were on our way. Our nine hour sail turned into just over six, averaging six knots.

Sandhamn is a cute little village on the outer edges of the Archipelago.

Docking into a windward side was very entertaining for the five people standing on the peer hoping to help us. We managed to tie down the bow, and the stern blew wide. Con and I (together) pulled for 10 minutes trying to win against the wind, when one young man about 18 said: "why don't you use your electric winch." An solution so obvious that we didn't think about it! That did the trick. Next time, we'll back in, tie, and use the bow thrusters to move to the dock. We dismounted, phoned family members to tell them to turn on their web cams and we stood on the peer waving to the marina web cam.

June 12, 2007 -- Using the bow thrusters and reverse, I was quite pleased with myself as I backed Big Sky out of the skinny Stockholm downtown slip we called "home" for the past 10 days, and steered Big Sky out of the narrow entrance/exit as Con managed the lines. It's good experience for me, but it can get my heart pounding with nervous anticipation. It's hard to judge where the tip of the bow is in relation to the marina dock and exactly when to begin making the turn. Feeling rather cheeky having exited flawlessly, I motored the the 2 1/2 hour trip to the North Sail marina. It would have been a 15 minutes bike trek from our marina, except that there was a bridge blocking us. I turned the helm to Con, when the North Sail representative responded to my cell phone query about where to dock saying casually "welcome, just back the boat up beside the trimeran." Con slowly back her up in water depth 3.4 meters... 2.7 meters... 2.6... Big Sky's keel is 2.2 meters. Hours after the docking, Con was still marveling at his docking skills. He told me after we'd tied up that he really didn't know if he could do it. You'd never know it, as he's always so calm.

June 10, 2007 -- Yesterday, we biked about 26K to the King and Queens house -- castle.



The Royal Family (three grown kids) are so attractive. If they were the British Royal family, no doubt the paparazzi would hound them. Here in Stockholm, the family appears to have a fair bit of freedom from the press. We catch headlines here and there in their gossip newspapers and in our lousy Swedish translation we're able to read a provocative caption or two. The castle had a smattering of people checking it out, otherwise fairly quiet. A major marathon was taking place and their route happened to be our same route home. Weaving in and out of the crowds, we cycled along side them for awhile. What a hot day for a marathon; it was 30 - 31 degrees.

June 7, 2007 -- Stockholm is quite likely our favourite city! Our days kind of go like this: we wake up about 7 or 8 a.m., have breakfast in our sunny cockpit which overlooks Castle Holmen and church steeples (about a half mile across the Baltic Sea from us). About 10 a.m., we point our bikes in a different direction from the day before and discover more neat things. We're somewhat paranoid about theft since our pick pocketing incident in St. Petersburg, so we decided to lock our bikes beside the Royal Guard. Con told him "if you don't mind, we'll leave our bikes here if you could watch them."
Royal Guard
Today, we triple-locked our bikes and walked around the medieval part of the town. So cool. We stopped at an open square and sat outside for lunch.

By late afternoon, we made our way back to Big Sky; Con prepared dinner; and I called the kids to wish them a "happy morning" in Calgary. After dinner, we headed back out on our bikes weaving through city parks where tons of people were enjoying picnics. Around 9 p.m. we were back in Big Sky's pilot house, hooked up on the internet. It's our chance to do a bit of business, email family and friends, and update the web site. We're loving our lifestyle.