Krišjānis Valdemārs, one of Latvia’s most prominent and influential people in the 19th-century found out, that if we draw a line on a map of Europe, starting at the farthest point of the Kara River in the north-east at the northern end of the Ural mountains – the border line between Europe and Asia, and ending in the south-west at the farthest point at the Cape St. Vincent in Portugal, and then draw a second line starting from the farthest point in the north-west at the North Cape in Norway and extending to the farthest point in the south-east at the Cape Matapan in Greece, then we will see both these lines crossing in the Baltic Sea, close to the Cape Kolka in Latvia. Hence, there seems to be the center of Europe, he concluded.

The waters nearby the Cape Kolka are not very welcoming, and the signs warn that swimming is extremely dangerous there. Even for the sailors, the Irbe Strait – the main entrance to the Gulf of Riga, running between the Cape Kolka in the south and the Sõrve Peninsula on the island of Saaremaa in the north, is considered to be the most hazardous spot when navigating the Baltic Sea. It’s there, close to the Cape Kolka, where the largest number of wrecks in the Baltic is buried in the sand at the bottom of the sea.

From the shore, the sea is something to contemplate, something what soothes our souls and whispers to us, something to wonder at. But then, on the sea, its raw power is able to spoil a life in just a fraction of a second.