Experience: A Megastar was born!

Two years have flown by quickly; I remember when Tallink announced a newbuild for their Shuttle service in early 2015, and it feels like yesterday. Yet, somehow, a whole ship was designed, built and fine-tuned in that time. And she wasn't even rushed at all, which I saw first-hand when I embarked on her maiden voyage on the 29th of January. And I did not only do the first crossing; in fact, I was on board during her entire first day in service, a total of four crossings. In addition to Sverre, with whom I did the entire trip, I met tens of other ship enthusiasts as they also did her first sailings either from Tallinn or Helsinki, or both. In addition to the arrival of the Megastar, there was plenty of other things happening on the Tallinn-Helsinki route to be excited about, as well, such as the thoroughly refit Silja Europa, and the Rosella filling in for the Viking XPRS.

Experience: No(r)way!? Part 2 - How I lost my jawbone

This is the 2nd part of a trip report. First part can be found here.

I left the last part off at walking through Oslo with Sverre after the Color Fantasy cruise, having no clue where he was taking me. All sorts of scenarios were going through my head and I had settled on the guess that we were going to a hotel, though we could've just as well be simply taking a train back to Fredrikstad, or onward to somewhere else. For entertainment, I shared my wildest thought of "We could also be heading to the airport to fly somewhere?" with Sverre, who remained quiet...

Kiss My Turku

It has now been well over a month since the beautiful sunny day when I packed my boxes, loaded them on a truck, took the Baltic Queen to Helsinki and continued to Turku.

Experience: Merilin on stormy seas

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to try out the last of the Tallinn-Helsinki ship crossing options I hadn't tried yet. While I've always been curious about crossing on a Linda Line catamaran (my previous experience with fast craft was during the SuperSeaCat era when I was quite young) I have still been somewhat cautious because the risk of having my trip postponed or cancelled seemed too big. And I can't say it didn't affect me this time; after I made my booking, the smaller white catamaran Karolin got some technical issues and schedules had to be redone for the whole month. My booked return trip disappeared entirely from the new schedules, thus I had to change the booking; but besides that, everything went quite smoothly. The booking, check in and boarding process wasn't too different from the large ferries, just on a smaller scale. The catamaran carries no cars, just bikes. There was a lot less people and to board I only had to scan a barcode. While the fact I received no boarding card was a great disappointment for me, I can see how the boarding system is very convenient for frequent travellers or those in a hurry - the customers Linda Line caters for.

Merilin

Karolin; due to technical issues her crossing lasted 2 hours and 30 minutes and the same reason prevented me from trying her out too. 

Merilin in Helsinki

The inside of the catamaran mostly consists of sitting areas; there was one bar and a rather small store, plus a nice staircase midships. To make a purchase it wasn't even necessary to leave the seat.
Considering the crossing only lasted an hour and 40 minutes I didn't really feel like anything was missing. Looking out of the window and feeling the catamaran roll a bit more easily than a large ferry gave a nice feeling of actually being at sea. 

Mandatory staircase photo

And since there is no funnel to photograph for the mandatory photo, here's another staircase

The nice feeling especially hit the spot during the return trip, which is the main reason why I'm writing this. The weather was gorgeous, just a little windy. As soon as we got out from between the islands of Helsinki and slammed the gas, the catamaran started rolling very heavily. It was difficult to even stand, not to mention walk. Had the trip lasted longer I would probably be writing this down as a negative experience, but the intense part probably didn't last longer than 40 minutes. Nonetheless, that 40 minutes was enough for me to get a few bruises while walking or by missing the seat while trying to sit. Most of the passengers seemed quite badly sea sick, but fortunately I was not the only "enthusiast" who found it the perfect occasion to hang around on the sundeck. I actually dare to say that the fresh air and view there kept me from getting very seasick and trying to hold on and not fly away was quite a lot of fun. I also enjoyed the fact that at one point I saw the islands of Helsinki as well as the coastline of Estonia at the same time, not to mention the evening ships that had departed from both ports.

Silja Symphony departing

Mariella showing off her beautifully done new stripes as she departs

Not the usual Kustaanmiekka route

The best photo I got of Viking XPRS with all the rolling...

.. and Norwegian Star, outbound from Tallinn

Quite an impressive trail, creating rainbows and all

Me enjoying the rolling, the wind and the splashes. Leaning was the only way to stay safe and still for a bit. 

As the catamaran arrived in Tallinn, we had a very nice view of the cruise area.

End of peak, start of another

By now, the cruise season is long over, but I'm still yet to share some happenings from before and after it ended; besides the long journey I had in August which I reported very thoroughly, I have been lucky to attend and photograph many interesting events and visiting ships.
For example, early in September there was an event, during which Port of Tallinn was offering bus excursions to the harbour of Muuga. The bus took us to the entrance of the harbor where we had to pass through radiation detectors and get back on the bus. Although I would've liked to walk to look around beyond the places where the bus took us, the transport was still needed because the distances there are really long. From the bus windows I saw many different buildings with various purposes.

Ammonium fertilizer storage, built to minimize the damage in case of explosion by directing the force upwards

Cranes. One of these can still be seen in the passenger harbour in the center of Tallinn as a remain of it's former purpose as a cargo harbour.

Oil storage tanks

Logs...

Grain conveyor..

... and storage building, which can be seen from very far away.

container terminal

coal terminal, currently not in use

View from farther away. The guide's talk about all of the facilities being directly linked to the piers made me wish to actualy see a pier, but that was unfortunately not possible. The harbour is large and very efficient and it could apparently serve many more ships than it's currently serving. 

In addition to that, about a week ago three warships and a submarine from the Netherlands visited the passenger harbour and two of the warships were briefly opened to all visitors. The security at the harbour was surprisingly strict, all the visitors were taken to the ships by bus; before boarding Amsterdam, the largest of the ships, visitors had to leave their bags and movement on board was allowed in only one set direction.

Evertsen

Equipment

Another ship, the Zeeland, was berthed alongside; Victoria on the background.

Star backing out...

... and turning around

Tanker Viimsi leaving the harbour after bunkering Victoria

Busy day

Tug life

Corridor on the Evertsen

From the Netherlands. Helicopter deck on the Amsterdam. On the right the single crane in the harbour, which I mentioned earlier.

Viking XPRS arriving

No zoom; great way to see a bulbous bow in action.

Friendly crew

the submarine Bruinvis

In the meanwhile, Silja Europa sailed to her final destination in Australia. After my previous post about her she sailed to Naantali for a refit and briefly returned to Tallinn, sporting a new Bridgemans livery. I last saw her on the 11th of September while volunteering on a sailboat named Lulu. I planned on taking pictures of her, but as soon as we got close enough, thick fog rolled in. The next evening she set sail towards Australia and arrived at Barrow Island on the 24th of October.

Photo from www.laivakuvat.com

Now for the news. In late September, Tallink and my favourite band Nightwish announced that two Nightwish cruises will take place in June 2015, on board the Baltic Princess, starting from Turku. Now, anyone who knows me even a little should understand why missing that was simply not an option. The major obstacle was the fact that booking opened up in early October, with earlier booking advantage to members of Club One and some mysterious Nightwish fanclub, of which no one I know had heard anything. Fearing that the tickets would sell out before I manage to get the funds to book myself a cabin, I put up an announcement on the Finnish Nightwish forum looking for cabin mates using my Club One advantage. Although it turned out that I wasn't getting the advantage code due to being a member of the Estonian Club One and not the Finnish one, it was still successful. Three people contacted me within a reasonable time willing to join, I got the code from a Finnish friend (Thanks Olli), the negotiations went very smoothly and I booked the cruise within the advantage time. I have already met two of my cruise mates face to face and I consider them new friends. I have also added a countdown ticker to the blog. 

Sights of July and what lies ahead

A lot has happened in July, resulting in several posts and good memories for a long time. In the meanwhile I've had lots of workdays at the cruise harbour. Although having the access doesn't feel as special as it used to, it's still a great place to look around and take photos once the shift is over. I've seen some beautiful ships and I'm yet to see some more, although most of the work is done by now. Of course I've got some really neat shots from outside the cruise area as well.

For example this photo of outbound Superstar, taken from Linnahall.

And this portrait of Victoria I, taken when I worked as a volunteer sailor on a sailboat named Emily, transporting people from one harbour to the other and vice versa during Tallinn Maritime days.

Quite the normal summertime six o'clock traffic on the bay: Norwegian Star, (Tallink) Star, Finlandia, Gann and behind her, Viking XPRS. Out of the picture, Victoria I is also setting sail.

The two sisters (Mariella and Princess Anastasia) behind the Old City Marina; the funnel of Viking XPRS also shows.

Norwegian Star seemed to be present every single time I had any business near the sea.

Which obviously results in lots and lots of pictures of her.

Quite a common, yet interesting sight - lifeboat drill. 

While I was on the Legend of the Seas she also seemed to be everywhere. 

And I got to witness some more advanced modern methods of ship maintenance. 

From two perspectives.

Fleet Street, Tallinn

Same place the other day.

From farther away

and from above.  

In comes Costa Luminosa

.. and Emerald Princess, accompanying Baltic Queen.

The list of visiting royalties extends - Royal Princess in royal solitude.

Slightly closer to the Emerald Princess.

My beautiful hometown and some boat.

Speaking of my hometown - on busy days, this lineup of wifi-enjoying crew members can be found at the stores.

Meanwhile at the "baby pier" - Hamburg

Europa 

and Serenissima

Serenissima and Viking XPRS

Gann, seemingly, was a bit too big for the baby pier though - here she is next to Crystal Symphony.

Azamara Journey and MSC Poesia

Celebrity Eclipse. Characteristically to the cruise line, her shape is quite interesting.

And the gangway is quite fancy.

Silver Cloud

Eurodam and Finlandia.

Back in May-June, I used to mention travelling plans a lot, mostly, to be more exact, my inability to make any. In the beginning of July I finally knew all I needed though and I've spent the whole month organizing. Now that the time left is as long as the trip itself and everything is quite clear to me, I feel like it's the right time to shed some light on what's coming up. So, for now I'll say that in two weeks I'll be on the move in Finland and Sweden, trying out all the Viking Line vessels I haven't travelled on yet. Of course it'll be so much more than just that but the rest I'll let you know of as it happens. Although accessing the internet may get a bit complicated sometimes, I'll try my best to post trip updates as soon as I find a way.