Estonian students' sailing trip to the Finnish archipelago and the celebration of the Baltic Sea Day 25.-29.08.2020

This summer BSP in Estonia organized an exciting environmental education sailing trip for Estonian students and some of their teachers. One of the purposes of this adventure was to celebrate the Baltic Sea Day 2020 accordingly - at sea observing, researching and feeling it's biodiversity. The trip was also a national prize of the Baltic Sea WebQuiz 2019 and so the best of the Estonian quiz participants where given a chance to come on a sailing learning trip.

The sailing trip crews consisted of 25 participants (4 teachers from 3 different schools and 21 students from 13 different schools across Estonia) and 4 sailing ships with their professional crews. Together they set out on 25th of August heading for the Finnish archipelago southwest of Helsinki, crossing the Gulf of Finland twice in four days and stopping at various small ports in the archipelago. The aim of the sailing trip was to provide participants with practical knowledge and skills about sailing and researching the state of the Baltic Sea environment. Throughout the voyage, the captains and mates of the Estonian Youth Sailing Learning Society "STA Estonia" gave the students their first sailing knowledge and practical skills. The young people were able to test themselves in a completely new environment - they learned basic sailing terminology, hoisting sails, marine navigation rules and markers, reading nautical charts, making necessary sailing knots and developing teamwork. Also during the trip the students got to test a trawler for collecting microplastic samples, carried out a coastal survey to collect marine debris, conducted a late-night observation of moths, sampled and analyzed the chemical composition of seawater and of course hiked in the archipelago.

In the middle of the sailing trip on 27th of Augus, the participants celebrated the Baltic Sea Day with a BioBlitz - on this day a joint 24-hour long nature observation was held for the students of the 9 Baltic Sea countries. The survey was conducted in the internationally widely used Bioblitz format with the help of volunteer observers and the data collected was sent to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), supporting research to improve the state of the Baltic Sea. The sailing trip's crew conducted the observation on one of the islands of the archipelago, trying to photograph and identify as many species of animals, plants and fungi as possible in the short amount of time. The aim of the day was to draw attention to the Baltic Sea as one of our extraordinary natural resources and to encourage young people to do something on this day for the benefit of the Baltic Sea. This day was celebrated in Estonia for the second time led by the Finnish Institute in Estonia and the Embassy of Finland in Estonia.

The organization of the sailing trip was supported by the Estonian Environmental Investment Center and the trip was carried out by the Estonian Youth Sailing Learning Society "STA Estonia" together with the Estonian Maritime Academy of Tallinn University of Technology. The sailing trip project was led by Gedy Matisen, the BSP national coordinator in Estonia.

Enjoy some videos and photos from the participants of the sailing trip:

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