Hanko ♡

Hankoon (Vadelmavene)!

After the 8 hour long leg from Dirham (Estonia) to Hanko by motor, we were happy to finally reach the harbour. There was not even light breeze, the wind meter was showind 0.01m/s, which meant no slightest chance to sail. It was joy to see that the harbour was not fully packed, as it very often is during the short Finnish summer. Maybe one of the reasons was cool weather, that kept many people home. Anyhow, finally we were here again, after 2 years. 

Many people are quite skeptical about this place and critisize it for being always full, noisy,  not having good enough facilities and what not. But I personally love this little town! Each time we come here, I want to have an extra parking day just to walk around and enjoy its "southern" atmosphere, with crowds of people, little markets, small shops, hidden and not beaches, cafeterias etc etc etc... This time was not an exception :)

I fully agree though, that for the harbour fee you have to pay there, all the facilities should be renewed. And the reason why I love coming back here is absolutely not related to the harbour itself, but the town and life of its own in summer.

On the evening of arrival we had a pizza with K, M and D, same friends we spent time with on the Estonian shore, and later, after the "traditional" boat-check tour, had a proper rest.

In the morning it was a new day in all meanings: the weather finally got noticeably warmer, it was our first shorts&t-shirt day :) And the things to do in this lovely place were so many, that we had to wake up rather early to cover as many of them as possible!

The first on the list was "must-do": shopping. With the bikes we headed to the local Lidl and got refills of all the missing food. Of course, with plenty of bags and in hurry to do all the rest that was planned for that day, we attracted the Murphey´s law: one of the bike´s tires was flat already at the parking place. After wasting a lot of time for fetching the tools from the boat and trying to get it repaired by ourselves, we realised that we might need to use the local bike service... Luckily it was open and was relatively close to the harbour. After a couple of hours of lost time, bike was finally fixed and we could go on.

 

By all means I wanted to go and visit The House of the Four Winds! I have been there once during my Finnish holiday, before I moved here. The views are breathtaking not only on the terrace, but also on the way there. It was a perfect late lunch place and we enjoyed it fully :)

The smaller route to this place, meant for bikes and pedestrians, follows quite much the shore curves, after going through the gorgeous villa district, central beach and some hotels.

After the meal we were in a hurry back to the boat, my parents-in-law were coming over to visit us :) After nice time with them and dinner in one of the restaurants close to the harbour, we were meeting my ex-colleague for a drink or two. 

The day seemed very long, as it was so full of all kind of events! But it was just what I expected it to be like...maybe I could skip the flat tire;)

Thanks to my ex-colleague's hint, we were lucky to be right in time for the market the morning after. It was a perfect idea to get all kind of fresh local goods to enjoy later in the next harbour. 

Off we go, but will be back! :)

 PS: as an alternative, on the way back my Captain tired the other harbour, Itämeren portti, which offers rather new facilities. But there too there was an issue: male sauna ran out of hot watter supply...

Dirham - one more Estonian harbour

To be honest, there was one more harbour before we reached Dirham. We stopped for one night in Lohusalu. Great new marina, with all the very modern facilities. Somehow the afternoon and evening were so busy, that I realised only afterwards, that no proper pictures were taken :( well, good reason to go back! :) 

So after one night in Lohusalu, where we had two laundries done, dinner in a restaurant in a great company of relatives and friends, we continued to Dirham. When approaching it, I was not so impressed: big warehouse-like concrete building was right on the shore. But once there, it somehow "disappeared" in the charm of the terrace, sauna, awesome company...

And this is one more harbour, where you have to be careful when approaching, plenty of rocks closer to the shore right next to the route.

 

At arrival it felt like we are somwhere else than Estonia. And even somewhere else than Baltic sea harbour. It looked some "dream-beach-holiday" place. A little terrace on the shore made me realise:WE ARE ON HOLIDAY. It looked like that. It felt like that. 

Of course we had to have the traditional "mooring" beer and cider :) Again a pleasant surprise in Estonian prices... both drinks in a place like that costed only 3 euros :)

 

After some time in the terrace we still had shopping to do. In the little village there is a small grocery store that has all the necessary - and not only :) - stuff. It was in our plans to refill the stock of beer, and in this shop we found among other things, for example, such a rare drink as Lidskoe (beer made in Belarus!). Of course my hubby had to buy the whole box, 24 cans :D. 

After shopping we had a lunch outdoors. The weather got better and better, we almost forgot how much cloths we had to have on only a couple of days earlier. The view was good. The company was perfect :)

Later in the evening we had a sauna booked with the same good friends. It was a great time together, thank you M, K and D :) Though we all agreed that sauna could have one little improvement: ventilation! No openable windows.. no chance to get some fresh air.. it was rather hot! Otherwise the facilities are also quite new and in good conditions.

After a great fun in a great company we were heading towards our boat quite late, well after midnight. And since it was only a day or two after the midsummer, we were lucky to see this sunset. Or maybe sunrise? :D

Overall very positive impression about this harbour.

Back to summer memories - Naissaar, Estonia

I know it has been a while since the last post... and I must admit it is a pleasure to hear from some of your, dear readers, that you have been missing the posts :) Now I suppose I am back to blog on a more regular basis: evenings and weekends are back to normal, as the boat has already been lifted, so it is not stealing the whole free time anymore. 

My idea was to post about all the harbouts we visited during the summer holiday, but after the first one I disappeared. So now back to the past, remembering the great summer days...

PS: I dont mind this at all on a chilly autumn evening ;)

So where did we stop... in Prangli! :) After that we had a night in Tallinn, and after some shopping we continued to the Naissaar. There was a squadron organized by our yacht club to go and visit this place, but it was later on, when according to our holiday we would be already elsewhere. Thus it was a must-see :)

When entering the harbour, after the Prangli approaching experience, we wanted to be on a safe side: the route was not so clearly marked, but luckily there was another boat in front of us that we could follow. The harbour itself did not impress us much. There were almost no services provided, and the ones that were, had a separate price.  But the place is quite nice, with a tall wavebreaker, that makes it rather protected from the wind and waves.

No matter it is not the best harbour ever, the island has a lot to offer in terms of sightseeing. It has interesting historical places as well as great nature. To move around you can rent little electrical cars, but we did not do that. Instead, we prefered to ride our mini-bikes 

 

 

The sights were perfect, lots of green and flowers everywhere, we were lucky to visit the place on a nice sunny day.

What is more, this was also the day of Estonian midsummer, so we happened to see the celebrations on this island. Apparently it is rather popular with the youngsters from Tallinn to come here for camping. There were some camps like the one below :) Must be fun!

From the historical point of view this island is a treasure: it used to be a secret military mine factory, belonging to Soviet Union untill 1991. The "end" came suddenly, judging by the  items found in the military base: there are still calendars on the wall, as they were put, personal items, like shoes... and of course a lot of Soviet Union attributes... 

The whole island is full of memorials of this type. They all are somewhat remote from each other, but easy to find once you start following the railway. That's what we did with the bikes.

Every now and then behind the bush there would be findings like this: 

Platforms filled with mines that were ready to be loaded to the train at any moment. The railways were build particulartly for this purpose. 

Overall the place is full of all sorts of military history. My hubby was in heaven :)The only conclusion we made is that the next time we visit the place, we will have a guide. 

Later at night there was a bonfire.  As mentioned, it was Estonian midsummer, or Jaanipäev. At the harbour there was a band playing and some dozen of people eating, drinking and dancing :) We also tried some shashlik and beer, but did not hang out late, it was still a cold night... and when woke up in the morning, still music was playing from inside the boats :) Apparently the party was a success!

Prangli - Juhannus with friends

We started the summer holiday on the Midsummer eve and the destination was Estonian island Prangli, where we headed on a rainy evening with a couple of friends. The arrival was quite late at night, so we did not see much of the place. Luckily two more boats from our yacht club were there before us. Big thanks to their crews for helping out with mooring! :) Approaching the harbour in the darkness was a bit exciting, there were only two illuminated leading lines. Also the depth was to keep an eye on: rather close to the coast it is still about 100m, but then suddenly it becomes quite shallow, with lots of underwater and water level rocks. Good advice was to stay away from the coast line as long as you get the leading lines aligned and only then get closer to the island and enter the harbour.  

The day after we went exploring the place and it turned out to be great:  

All the yards in this summer village were particularly accurate and well taken care of. At the same time, many have preserved old traditions and original state of the houses. I was surprised to see that most of the houses have names :) 

The mooring is free of charge, so were not surprised there were not so many services there, for example there is no showers or WC, only outhouse. Though to our surprise, shore power was free as well as WLAN.   

One fisherman was selling fresh fish right in the harbour. We got a nice fresh cod purchased. Luckily one of our friends knew how to clean the fish and helped me out with this :) 

We opted for grilling it, but it was not a big success, as you can see below :) Cod is very moist fish and falls into pieces whenever you try to turn it or otherwise touch it. Maybe (not to say absolutely! :) ) grilling was not the best way to cook it. Obviously for 4 adults that was not enough, but it was fun to buy and prepare it anyway :) 

There is awesome sauna in the island. It is located not really close to the harbour, so the owner offers great service by providing transportation at agreed time with the truck below. That was a fun ride! :)

Sauna price includes grill, woods for it, and transportation. 

No, they did not kill the seal to decorate the wall. It died in the fisherman's nets :( 

Right next to sauna there is a summer cottage for rent, that is fully preserved from the old times :)

Sauna should be booked separately. It was absolutely great! We enjoyed it for 2 hours, grilled some sausages, had transportation included, and price was ridiculously small for the service, it turned out to be only 5€ / person, as there were 9 of us (3 boats crews). Highly recommend this place! 

Apart from the unusual sauna, Prangli was known for the Must Luuk restaurant. Now the owner has closed it and has opened a new one on the sea shore named  RootS. Very nice cozy modern place. No one of us tried food there, we only had some desserts and drinks, so cannot say anything about the menu, but location is very nice. 

Restaurant windows overlook the harbour. Also they are facing west, it was a great place to admire sunsets in a nice company with a good drink :) And the place was rather popular with the locals, there were surprisingly many people late in the evening. 

We were lucky enough to have rather clear sky to enjoy the sunsets :) 

In good company and new great location time was flying, but we had the whole holiday ahead, that seemed to be plenty of time :)