Saxby beach and lighthouse
Saxby beach and lighthouse
Saxby beach, with its limestone outcrops and pebble ridges that stretch far inland, offers both scenic beauty and geological discovery.
You can watch the sea breaking up the beach from Saxby lighthouse, observe the different stages of vegetation forming on the pebble ridges and take note of the peculiar growth patterns of fir trees. The limestone of the Vormsi eonothem on Saxby cliff is rich in fossils. The area also grows sea kale with thick leaves and fragrant white flowers.
An extensive belt of pebble ridges, covered with typical alvar fir and hillock forests up to two and a half metres high, runs for about half a kilometre inland.
The sea here is deep. A steep terrace awaits just a few hundred metres from the shore with depths of over 12 m. The former port of Saxby was on the list of ice-free ports.
Cape Saxby is the site of the Saxby lighthouse, an important maritime landmark on the northern mouth of the shipping route in Väinameri Sea. It is the first lighthouse on the western/north-western coast of Estonia to be assembled from cast iron plates utilising the so-called Gordon system, and the oldest lighthouse on Vormsi.
The first 17-metre-high cast-iron lighthouse was erected on cape Saxby in 1864, but it proved too low for Vormsi and after it was outgrown by the forest, the lighthouse was moved to Vaidloo island.
A new cast iron lighthouse was ordered from the Liepāja foundry in Latvia and erected in 1871. The components of the new lighthouse were delivered by sea and assembled on-site. The ruins of a pier that was likely built to unload the parts can still be seen a few hundred metres south of the lighthouse.
The lighthouse, including the lantern room, stands 24 metres high (the height of the fire is 27 metres above sea level), with a diameter of 4.6 metres at the base and 2.35 metres in the lantern room. Next to the fire tower there is a boathouse for the rescue service, a wooden dwelling, a sauna and other outbuildings.
The lighthouse was damaged during both World War I and II, but was restored after the wars.
In 1912, in connection with the construction of the naval fortress of Peter the Great, Russian naval signal posts were built along the coast of the Baltic Sea. One such was built at Saxby lighthouse, but the Russians themselves blew it up in 1917 before leaving the island.
White ship off the coast of Saxby
On Olsok in 1990 when Vormsi church was reconsecrated, those residents of Vormsi who had fled to Sweden half a century earlier had the opportunity to come and visit their home again. The Republic of Estonia had not yet been declared independent again and Vormsi was still in a border zone closed to foreigners, but Swedes of Vormsi were granted special permission to visit the island on this momentous occasion.
380 people arrived on a “white ship” from Sweden. This means that the Baltic Star, i.e. the ship that carried people from Sweden to Vormsi, was allowed to remain anchored at Saxby roadstead. Small boats ferried people from the Baltic Star to the shore. On the shore, the Soviets had set up a temporary passport control, where Swedes had to leave their passports when disembarking the ship and could get them back in the evening when returning to Swedish territory. Despite this, some people stayed on land overnight and spent the night with acquaintances and relatives without any reprisals.