The Island of Aegna

Aegna is a small island just 14km from Tallinn and in May I discovered that there was an almost daily ferry going to the island. Apparently, my photo log of my trip is too long for Gmail, so if you find this email is truncated, you can still read it online here at Substack.

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It’s only an hour to get there but a visit is an all day affair as there are only two ferries a day.  I wake up early (ok, early for me) and pick up some fruit and cottage cheese for my lunch on my way to the dock on the other side of town. 

Very high on my list of things that never happened to me before I came to Estonia: accidentally buying flavoured cottage cheese. Horseradish flavoured. 

Maybe I can buy a sandwich on the island.

There’s my ship! Vesta is a “short sea passenger ship” which  will take me and up to thirty five other people to the island: an hour long trip. Vesta was built in Russia in 1971 and came to Estonia (and became Estonian!) in 1992. The engine was replaced in 2010 and it’s been travelling to Aegna and back since 2014. I’m pretty sure it will know the way.

Patarei harbour is really just a small dock alongside Linnahall (one of my favourite spots which would be worth a photo-tour on its own). There are half a dozen of us waiting to board the Vesta for the 10am ferry: a family and a couple of workers with big cans of paint. No tents, so I guess everyone is returning with me at 18:15.

Vesta is pretty. I’m a sucker for pretty boats. I’m amazed that the return trip, an hour each way, is only six euros.

Everyone else went inside and is sitting in the cabin with tiny plexiglass windows; I’m the only one sitting outside. Why would you be in there when you can be out here? It’s a little windy but not too bad and the view of Tallinn is fantastic.

We appear to be racing a ferry. I uploaded a video of us speeding across Tallinn Bay.

I would pay six euros for the boat ride alone.

The problem of sitting in the back is that I didn’t even notice the island until we were pulling in.  Vesta is heading back to Tallinn now but she’ll be back in six hours to get me.

The harbour is on the south side of the island with a dock and a seven-metre high lighthouse (this is not very high). The island looks cold and misty. The Aegna Port Café, really just a stand with a rusting pair of chairs next to it, is boarded up.  Everyone else has bags of food. Maybe I should have brought more.

Aegna is is just three square kilometers but it’s the 17th largest island in Estonia, which has hundreds of the things. There’s ten kilometers of coastline, mostly like this shingle beach, although there are apparently two sandy beaches recommended for swimming. I will not be swimming, much to the disappointment of my winter-swimming-friends.

Most of the island is covered with forest with patches of swamp in between. The sun has come out and it is stunning. I’ve taken a million photographs already. Information signs in Estonian and English are scattered along the paths ready to teach me about types of fern and the food chain of the forest.

It’s very windy and I’m thinking I should have brought warmer clothes. This wind-battered butterfly thinks so too.

Estonia has a number of large rocks which were carried here by the glaciers which, to my delight, are called erratic boulders. Aegna has 23 large erratic boulders which measure from 10 to 20 metres in circumference (30-65 feet) and ten smaller ones. This is the largest, the Tulekivi erratic boulder, which has a circumference of 35 metres and is 4 metres high. To compare, I’m 1.5 metres high. 

Tulekivi is listed in the national database of geological natural monuments. The name means “fire stone” which is said to be because they would light signal fires here to help the fishermen find the island in the dark. Now it has a spruce tree growing out of the top of it so I guess no one is lighting fires.

I haven’t planned out my day much but the one place I knew I didn’t want to miss was  Aegna cemetery. The first written reference to the cemetery is 1736.  There was a wooden chapel here in 1882 where the residents would attend on Sundays. At the time, there was a stone wall around the cemetery.

The iron crosses there now are from the mid-19th century; the last burials took place at the beginning of the 20th century.

The stone wall is gone: the burial ground is now fenced in by discarded railway tracks.

This is the view from Mustamäe Beach, looking at Kräsuli island. Mustamäe means black hill. There is a sign to point out that it isn’t very black and there is no hill.

In the Middle Ages, this strait between the islands was measured as five metres deep and was used as a fairway. I think a fairway is like a baby shipping channel. In the 18th century, it was measured at two fathoms, which I think is less than five metres. Whoever wrote the information signs thinks that I know a lot more about maritime English than I actually do.

The island is criss-crossed with hiking trails. One of the things I love about this place is that there’s no point in hurrying because there is nowhere else to go. The ferry comes when the ferry comes.

A sign informs me that this is a till beach which is not the same as a shingle beach. More intriguingly, I learn that Aegna was a pirate stronghold until the end of the 16th century: pirates ambushed cargo ships coming through the strait using small fast boats.  

The island is about the size of New York’s Central Park;  I can’t help but think it must have been easier to go around the far side.

The same sign explains that later, a nearby farm housed the island security to protect the inhabitants from pirates and coastal raiders. I don’t know if this is the farm because the only sign it had was “no entry, private property”.

I ended up back at the harbour so I am heading straight across the island now to the most popular point on the island: North Beach. Aegna has coastline, forest and bog. What more could anyone want?

The decaying bog woodland looks so old and pretty. I’m pretty sure fairies live here.

I’ve made a friend! The Seek app by iNaturalist, which I point at anything that moves and quite a few things that don’t,  tells me that I’ve found a European pond frog.

There’s something magical about the whole place. It seems so isolated, far from the city. There are only a few dozen people on the island. A man on a small tractor-like-thing (that’s a technical term) passed me and stopped to make sure everything was OK. I smiled like a maniac, trying to find the words to say my god, you live here, isn’t that fantastic? He waved and left me to squeal over the marsh marigolds I found floating near a small bridge.

Even the tree moss is amazing.

A sign explains to me that  there’s a lot of windfall here from the storms. Apparently the high winds will damage the spruce root turf whereas the pines just break.  The sign is somewhat argumentative, insisting that the fallen trees must be left to decompose to protect the biodiversity of the forest ecosystem. 

I wonder if there’s an issue with tourists coming to this island and grumpily asking why no one cleans this place up?

The first written reference to Aegna was dated 1297, when the Danish king set down a proclamation to ban foresting on the islands of Aegna and Naissaar. 

Since then, it has been occupied by a number of countries and held many military installations but I can’t even begin to think about making sense of the island’s history just yet. There’s too much to take in.

I’ve reached Samelik Bog which a sign tells me used to be called Samelik puddle and is now a dried up bog. This is possibly caused by the sheer embarrassment of being called a puddle. The area is now home to a black alder swamp with spruce in the understory, which I presume means undergrowth if  you are bigger than a bush. What’s the difference between a swamp and a bog?

I’ve found North Beach which is indeed sandy and looks like it could be on the California coastline. I’m the only one here. 

In the trees by the beach there is a collection of picnic tables, complete with firewood. The perfect spot for lunch.

The cottage cheese is not bad but a bit odd, in a “did someone dip their roast beef sandwich in my cottage cheese?” sort of way.  I carried a small brick all around the island to charge my phone with but now I realise that I brought the wrong cable. The phone still has 15% battery so it’ll probably be fine. 

The Internet informs me that three fathoms is about the height of an adult giraffe, which strikes me as high on the list of the most useless information I have ever found. Unless, I suppose, you want to walk your giraffe across the strait.

The wind is cold but my picnic table is sheltered and in the sunshine. I could stay here forever. 

Except that the one thing I cannot do is miss the ferry. If I’m not at the dock when it’s time to leave, I’ll be trapped here without even any cottage cheese with which to console myself, not to mention a dead phone. 

Even knowing that I had to rush for the harbour and my phone was dangerously low on battery, I can’t help stopping to take more photographs of the moss-covered forest. It looks like something out of a fairy tale.

The ferry left five minutes early but luckily I am on it. The men with the paint are not. I hope that was intentional.

I still can’t believe that I can get a two hour boat trip around Tallinn Bay for just six euros. I also can’t believe no one else thinks this is amazing.

As we are motoring towards the dock at Linnahall, I’m happy and just a little bit sunburnt as my phone decides it has had enough and shuts itself off.  A wonderful day out and even better, I saw less than a third of the island; I’m really looking forward to going back and exploring some more.