Our project to explore the UK and Europe by sail is now in its seventh year. We overwintered Ruby Tuesday in 2023/24 near Stockholm in Sweden and rejoined her in early May 2024.

This year we sailed from Stockholm to Turku in the south of Finland via the Åland Islands, and from there explored the archipelago along the coast to Helsinki.

We then crossed the Gulf of Finland to Estonia and its picturesque Hanseatic capital Tallin, following the route described by Arthur Ransome in his book “Racundra’s First Cruise”. We thoroughly enjoyed Tallin with its medieval Old City. While we were there we also took a train down to Tartu, the picturesque university city in the south of the country.

From Tallinn, we sailed southwards along the Estonia coastline, visiting the beautiful islands of Hiumaa, Muhu, Saaremaa, and Kuhnu, ending up in Riga, the capital of Latvia. We had several more days exploring that city, then we took a bus down to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Back in Riga, we sailed up the Gulf of Riga to the isolated island of Ruhnu which we explored while sheltering from strong westerly winds.

Once they had quietened down, we continued on to Ventspils on the Latvian coast, before setting sail across the Baltic Sea to Gotland, and from there to Öland and back to mainland Sweden. We stopped off at the remote island of Utklippan, then sailed down to the Danish island of Bornholm, visiting the tiny island of Christiansø on the way. From there it was back to Malmö in Sweden, where we had decided to leave Ruby Tuesday for the winter.

Something that concerned us at the beginning of the season were reports that the Russians are using powerful transmitters to interfere with the GPS signals that are used for navigation, causing uncertainty in our position. However, in the event, we are not aware that our instruments were affected, and we always ended up where we planned to go. It seems that aircraft may be more affected due to their higher speeds. Most sailing is visual anyway.

As in previous years, the following links will take you to the individual blog posts of different legs of the journey:

1. Frisians, Baltic Germans, and interfering neighbours
2. A quarantine island, North African pirates, and a Nordic saint
3. Food from Lapland, a foreign princess, and a Finnish composer
4. A leper island, a scary thunderstorm, and a day for the military
5. A breakdown at sea, a library of the future, and contested territory
6. An island of mines, Soviet life and times, and the meaning of freedom
7. A student town, a nation’s identity, and midsummer celebrations
8. On Racundra’s trail, a haunted castle, and bygone island communities
9. A ball of fire, a pit of lions, and a lost camera
10. A stroke of luck, Baltic ups and downs, and a bloody accident
11. Fun-loving Blackheads, rude cats, and Holocaust reminders
12. AirBnB woes, a republic within a republic, and Soviet prudes
13. A seal-hunters island, a rough crossing, and a town of cows
14. A musical interlude, a broken spell, and a Viking hoard of silver
15. A grumpy husband, a beacon of light, and a mysterious fortress
16. Peace between neighbours, Bronze Age spirits, and a lonely outpost
17. A Royal Navy attack, Bob Dylan’s boat, and a detested fortress
18. A near miss, a twisted torso, and different minds