Reval to Baltic Port

September 5th, 6:20 a.m. Barometer 30.25. We wasted a day in getting provisions and taking on board the fine new gratings for the seats of the steering-well and the new iron horse for the mainsheet, which we stowed in the forecastle for use next year, as its mass of iron would have played all sorts of tricks with our newly adjusted compass. The wind that would have served us so well, had we been able to start before, had died away, and was replaced early this morning by a slight breath from the S.E., with which we drifted out of harbour on a clear morning while the smoke of the Reval chimneys was of divided opinions as to what wind was blowing or whether any wind was blowing at all. We, however, had made up our minds that the wind was S.E., and set the balloon jib as a spinnaker, and were happy to find that it agreed with us and drew. By nine o’clock we had brought Karlo Island due W. An hour later we had cleared it and were steering to pass close by Surop, the balloon now set as a staysail.

Changes of sails were always a delight to the Ancient Mariner who, tenderly handling our little tablecloths and pocket-handkerchiefs, remembered sail-shifting in the famous ships of long ago.

“My best sailing,” he would say, looking critically at our balloon, “was in the Demooply (Thermopylae). There was she and the Kutuzak (Cutty Sark), and I was in the Demooply. In those days there was racing between those ships, and not a man in any ship but would have his bet on one or other, if it was only a pound of tobacco. Double crews they had, and when I first sailed with the Demooply I thought officers and men were all mad. We never left those ships alone. We were shifting one sail or another sail for every little change of wind. Double crews, but none too many for the work, and before I had been on board a week, I was as mad as all the rest. There was real sailing done in those days.”

Today, however, no ingenuities in setting canvas would have been of any use to us. There ensued a period of absolute calm, accompanied by a psychological storm, for the Cook demanded that the motor should be used. The Ancient and I have never been shipmates with a motor before, and we do not like them, trust them or understand them. After long opposition, and trying to prove that we were really moving, although the water was like glass, we did at last try to wind it up, and found that it would not go; whereupon the Cook asked that it should be thrown overboard, and was not pacified on being told that it was valuable as ballast. However, when a breath of wind came diffidently down to us from the N. and we got steerage way again, she relented and gave us luncheon on deck. At 3:30 we had Surop Lighthouse abeam, and saw a flight of twenty-one duck just off the point. At four we passed the new Surop blinking-buoy, and saw the four-masted German schooner which had followed us out of Reval, away to N. of us by Nargon, with all staysails and spanker set, a fine sight, but too far away for the camera. By six o’clock we were just moving through the water N. of Fall, and it was already clear that the spell which lies on me when going westward along this strip of coast was not to be broken.

Every time I have sailed from Reval to Lahepe Bay or to Baltic Port, I have been becalmed off Surop and spent the night drifting between there and Pakerort. I have spent as many as thirty hours on this passage of a score of sea-miles, and I face it always with desperate resignation. This was to be my record quick passage. Racundra easily beat both Slug and Kittiwake, for she, first of my ships, covered those magic score of miles in under the twenty-four hours. The spell is not laid on that passage going the other way, but you will remember that it was precisely between Pakerort and Surop that we had to spend that wild night after our futile attempt to beat into Baltic Port with a broken wing.

This night was to be the completest contrast to that night of storm. In scarcely rippled water, across broad patches smooth as oil, we crept slowly towards Pakerort. There was a fiery sunset over the sea to the N.W., against which the sails of the little fishing-boats on the bank off the promontory were as if picked out with a fine brush and Indian ink. We saw, through the binoculars, the little fleet scatter as the twilight fell. Some made off beyond the point, and three, under sails and oars, slipped homewards into Lahepe Bay on the nearer side of Pakerort. Black silhouettes against that fiery sky, they turned suddenly into pale blots moving against the darker mass of the cliff. And then the cliff itself faded, and the lighthouse above it shone out, and there were stars and a wind that you could feel on the back of your hand, but would not blow a match-flame crooked. The Cook, extremely angry with the motor, and with us for our philosophic, indeed almost relieved, acceptance of the fact that the smelly little creature would not work, went to bed. The Ancient and I smoked together in the steering-well, after lighting our sidelights, which on this calm bright night burned magnificently. We rounded Pakerort and then were met by a very slight breath from the S.E., against which we beat slowly into Roogowik.

At anchor, off the harbour, was a ship of the Estonian Navy. Signal lights were chattering between her and the harbour. Small boats with lanterns passed to and fro. The faint wind brought us the noise of music on board. And then, as we came nearer, someone on board must have noticed us, and we were presently drenched with the blinding cold glare of a searchlight. “They think we’re another little ship-of-war,” said the Ancient, “and they’re afraid we’re going to ram them.” If not, it was with very bad manners that they kept us in such a glare that we could hardly see what we were doing and could not see the tiny light of Baltic Port. At last, however, they tired of this, and when we had recovered our eyesight, we found the little red light of the harbour, stood on the port tack till it had turned to green, and then, keeping it so, tacked towards it and, at 1:30 a.m., rounded into the harbour.

We found not the comfortable harbour I had known before, but one of, temporarily, half that size. Two big schooners were lying berthed side by side against the outer mole, and we had to tie up to the new tarred quay which walled off the anchorage, now dry land, where, with other happy little boats, Kittiwake had her moorings last year. We were glad of the new fenders from Helsingfors, and, getting ourselves pretty black, managed to keep Racundra clean. We tied up fore and aft, had a tot of hot but inferior rum, and went to bed.