Weihnachtskreuzfahrt nach Riga 2001

Hinzugefügt:
16.01.2002
Schiff:
Finnjet
Route:
Helsinki-Tallinn-Riga-Tallinn-Helsinki
Datum:
23.12.2001-26.12.2001
Autor

Finnjet has for the last four years made Christmas cruise to Riga, and this year was no exception. This year's planned timetable was with departure to be happening from Helsinki 23.12 at 18.30, the Christmas evening to be spent at sea and arrival to Riga next day at 9.00. Departure from Riga was at 14.00 and arrival to Helsinki next day, 26th, at 15.15.
Because Silja's Super Seacat Four had ceased it's Tallinn-traffic bit earlier than scheduled this year because of ice and weather conditions, extra Tallinn stops were added to the timetable, with arrival at 22.00 and on the return trip departure at 12.00.
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Silja offers car parking for passengers on ship's cardeck for ca 17€, so this time our boarding was to be happening through the ship's car deck. We arrived to the terminal about 1,5 hour before departure and the harbour was already full of cars, mostly going to Tallinn. About 1 hour before departure cars were began to take aboard through the stern gate. The starboard side upper ramps were lowered and used as "parking garage" and the Tallinn-bound cars were located at the main cardeck floor. Our cabin was a 4-person Tourist IS-cabin, D2 in tickets, what appeared to be an ex. 2 Inside cabins connected with door. The door and one telephone were just removed with screw's holes still visible at the wall.
The ship was starting to get full, there was probably all upper-deck cabins booked plus quite a lot deck passengers to Tallinn. Cruise program said that there would be an security trial for passenger at departure time at deck 7, anyway I visited the outside deck about 5 minutes before departure and all that suggested a trial was one crew member with life-vests on. There was no announcement, or anything, about that. Later sitting at the Stardust-bar at deck 9 the clock went to 18.30, but there was nothing to suggest that the ship was departing. Then about five minutes later captain Fagerström's voice came to the public address, saying "Crew, ship is ready for departure". Few moments later lights dimmed for a short period (probably when starting the electrical power transfer from diesels to propellers) and then, at 18.37, ship left Katajanokka with welcome aboard announcement sounding on the public address. Like every time in last 25 years, ship reversed to Kruunuvuorenselkä, where it turned around and continued through Kustaanmiekka to the Gulf of Finland. Shortly after departure the deck passengers conquered all possible staircases and lobbies, there were people sitting on the floor in every deck, even in the front staircase outside the Conference centre.
The food was served as buffet-table in ship's all three restaurants. We headed to the first serving at 19.00.
After about 1 hour of sailing the ship started to shake a little bit, I thought it was because of ice. But when looking out of a window there was really no ice anywhere, the ship was somewhere approaching the caisson of Tallinn. Then I realised what that shaking could be and I went to Information to ask our speed. I got about 22 knots for the answer, so we were driving with turbines and that created the slight shaking (not so slight when going with 30 knots!). We arrived to Tallinn at planned time and we were estimating to depart again after 15 minutes. The time went on again, with announcements "GTS Finnjet will leave again for Riga in 5 minutes" and after Meloodia's arrival, at about 22.30, ship left Tallinn, turned around and headed first towards north and then on long port turn to west, between island of Naissaari and Estonian mainland. Shortly after departure the shaking came back, we were driving with turbines again! So we were now driving on more than 20 knots towards Riga, where we should arrive not until about 35 hours later. There was quite normal cruise program, with Christmas karaoke and so on, anyway the atmosphere was much quieter than on normal Tallinn-cruises and the public areas were now empty of those deck passengers. The ship started to get quiet with Pratt & Whitneys still powering us into the night.
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Next morning opened very foggy, and there was no idea where the ship could be, turbines were at least shut down. The breakfast-buffet was served again in all restaurants. The cruise program promised a guessing competition at 11, where people should guess the sea depth at 11.00. About one hour before the ship suddenly came out of the fog, and there was land visible on both sides. That meant we were entering Gulf of Riga at the cape between Saarenmaa and Latvia, "Kura kurk". The seachart at deck 4 showed that sea depth should be something between 20-30 meters, those Baltic coasts are very shallow. Competition papers were available at Stardust and there were lots of people taking part to the competition. What I could see most of the answers were at about 100 meters, the normal depth of Baltic Sea, and then there were people who took lots of papers and answered every possible depth that could exist… I guessed 25 meters. The results were going to be announced at 13.30. After that I went to ask about our sailing plan, as we were just few hours from Riga and still had quite good speed. I got informed that because of a storm forecast for Baltic Sea we had driven quickly to the Gulf of Riga and were going to spend the night somewhere close to the Latvian coast. The midday went just sitting on the Boulevard cafe watching sea and passing cargo ships, also free coffee was offered for cruise guests.
Soon after midday the ship entered thick fog again, and visibility dropped to just pair hundred meters. At 13.30 I took a chance to see what was the ship's hair dresser. It appeared to be the first cabin on the 6th deck starboard cabin corridor, and made rather good work. In the meantime the competition results and winners should have been announced, but actually nothing was said. Later I went to the Info to ask about that, and the right answer was 27 meters, with three exact answers. It was quite surprising, but as said there were people who didn't have completely fair play…
Ship had stopped by 15.00 and later on the evening it started to snow and wind also increased. Visibility was so low you couldn't sometimes see the sea below! The Christmas evening went dining in a la carte restaurant Adam & Eve, with Christmas buffet, of course. The second serving was quite empty, that was actually 5th buffet serving that evening.
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Next morning was again foggy, and when waking up at 8 ship was already driving along river Daugava towards the centre of Riga. Buffet-type breakfast was again served in Helsinki and Adam & Eve, and breakfast went watching ship's arrival to Riga, there was some ice packed next to the pier and when reversing the ship suddenly stopped few times and power was increased with reasonable shaking in the restaurant, and finally we were docked at 9.00. The fog wasn't so heavy anymore as we were so far away from coast. Disembarkation was going to be through cardeck's stern ramp, with few hundred meters walking along ship's side to the terminal. Passports were checked at cardeck when leaving the ship. After few hours in rather cold and snowy Riga we returned to the ship, this time passport controllers were probably having a break, as there was no-one at the cardeck. With some time left before departure I went to explore the empty decks of Finnjet from almost every possible perspective. When departure time came, Finnjet left the pier 5 minutes past two, and turned around on the river. With bow and stern thrusters all 215 meters changed direction quite easily, we had also a harbour tug breaking ice around us and pushing our stern left to help the turning. We started our home trip with slow sailing along Daugava in again thickening fog. After 1 hour we came to open sea and speed was increased to about 15 knots. Just like inbound, when arriving to Kura Kurk, the weather cleared and there was some cargoships and lighthouses visible, but after about 30 minutes we went to a heavy snow rain and everything around us disappeared. There was moderate northern wind on the Baltic Sea, and Finnjet pushed through the waves rolling a little bit, sometimes the bow hit a wave quite heavily and strange kind of metallic scraping sound could be heard, probably made by anchors.
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Next morning was very foggy just as all other mornings and during breakfast there started to be some land visible on the left side, surely Estonia. The ship's planned arrival time to Tallinn was 11.30. After breakfast I went to the deck to see that we were just passing a small caisson-type lighthouse, which is located in the middle of the Gulf of Tallinn. Soon after a big anchored cargoship came visible, and then Tallinn started to show through the fog. We got pilot and headed towards the harbour of Tallinn. The wind was behind us with force of about 15 m/s, blowing all the exhaust gases from the funnels to the outside deck. After passing the breakwater captain moved to the bridge, quite heavily dressed of course, and engines were put to reverse. It was interesting to watch us sliding along the side of the dock in tailwind with engines making terrible noise on full reverse, anyway the ship managed to stop in time ;). After stopping Tallinn harbour's tug Neptun came to push our left side to keep our stern at the pier as the wind was more from our side. We were tied to the pier at about 11.15, and after taking the trash containers out cars were started to load, there were actually quite a lot of cars going to Helsinki. When sitting at the Boulevard Cafe suddenly there started to smell like diesel, now the wind was blowing the exhaust gases also to the air-condition intake. Soon after passengers started to board the ship from Tallinn, there was again at least 200 passengers who populated the public areas and cafeterias so that there was no vacant seat in the whole ship. So in a very short moment our nice spacy cruiseship had turned to a crowded diesel-smelling Tallinn-ferry. The departure time passed by but we were still docked with no sign of departure. The ship left at last at 12.35, and there was no reason given for the delay. That ment we had just 2h 40 minutes to arrival, so, just as expected, the familiar shaking started soon after turning around outside the harbour, turbines started to push us towards home. In the last two hours nothing really happened, there was again every staircase crowded by deck passengers and in moderate headwind and waves we crossed the Gulf of Finland with 23 knots and started to approach Helsinki. We sailed through Kustaanmiekka 30 minutes before arrival time, but because of Cindrella in our quay the ship had to almost stop before proceeding to the dock. About 15 minutes before arrival we went to the cardeck, where the main floor was again full of cars from Tallinn. Those were of course disembarked first and about 10 minutes after we could also go forward, first along the upper ramp to the bow and after an u-turn along the main cardeck to the stern ramp and out of the ship. We were first directed by ship's personnel to a lane which had a container blocking it and it was then hard to get to the lane in use. There was still remaining the queuing to the passport control, which took quite long time. After passport control the cruise was completely over.
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I would say that it was very nice cruise, although the Christmas atmosphere can't really be created to a ferry, as much as Silja has advertised it. Also Finnjet's cabins are starting to be in very bad condition, but otherwise the service was very nice, they could have just given some more annoucnemets with information about ship's position, speed, arrival time to Tallinn etc.
Anyway the atmosphere was very different than on normal Tallinn-cruises, we sailed through many interesting places, there were many chanes to see the ship manoveuring in different ports and we got also turbine-driving three times. So it was very nice change to the normal Tallinn- and Stockholm-cruises, but anyway I would prefer spending next Christmas on land.

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