Monday 18 June
Due to pending doom and gloom in the weather forecast, we decided reluctantly not to stay a day to explore this fascinating island, but to press onward in our quest to reach Tallinn within the next ten days – while we could. After a convivial supper with a German skipper whom we have encountered regularly since Stralsund, and trying to avoid the local mosquitos having supper on us, we thus departed a little sadly this morning, in weather more reminiscent of a British summer: grey skies, showers and a fickle breeze.
As usual, we set the mainsail and gennaker ready for the anticipated wind, and by lunchtime it was too much for the gennaker. It became a day of sail hokey-cokey: the gennaker went in and was swapped for the genoa, the staysail was added, the genoa went in and the gennaker came back out, and we were still only touching 4.5 knots; the wind increased so the gennaker went in again, the first reef was put in the mainsail and the staysail was added. After all this exercise, Skipper took a nap in the warm cockpit under skies of lighter cloud, while Mate enjoyed a spell of helming for a sleigh ride of 6-8 knots.
We closed Moon Sound and had a brief battle to bring all sails down in a good F5, and were soon snug against the harbour wall in Kuivastu harbour, on our second Estonian island of Muhu (Moon) – ‘the island where time rests’. The colourful map leaflet kindly provided by the local tourist office suggests there’s plenty to see and do here while we wait for the depression to work its way through and on to Russia.