Avoiding congestion we arrived nice and early at the pilot station. To make things easier for the pilot we came in through the Northerly approach, although ships coming from the West normally use the southerly entrance. An entrance which answers to the Grand name of Suurupi 3 Pilot station. The one we used is just called North Tallinn. I think that was an unexpected variation on the regular proceedings as the Jewel of the Seas coming from St. Petersburg was clearly startled by it. The fact that the Prinsendam was sitting at the pilot station at the same time as them did not go down very well. However it is the pilot organisation that decides in which sequence the ships are being serviced and thus they had to wait until the pilot boat had delivered a pilot to the Prinsendam first. Not that it mattered very much; as the Jewel of the Seas was going to the cruise pier, which is outside the old port and thus could dock much quicker than us. For the cruise pier it is basically putting the brakes on in time and the gangway out, while for the old port you normally swing around and back into the port.
That is what we did accordingly. There is the option also to swing inside the harbour but as the water is very shallow there, turning around takes a long long time as the water can hardly flow away from under the keel. Outside the breakwater there is about 2 meters more depth and hence swinging around goes much faster. Another issue was the presence of the USS Simpson in the port. It was a port for some R & R and to show the flag. It does not always go down very well with navy ships, if a cargo ships swings around in the port and then sweeps its bow over, or nearly, over the helicopter deck. The pilot was very concerned about the heart rate of the commanding officer and we have great respect for all the guns on deck. Thus we swung outside and then backed into the port, coming alongside the pier at the decent time of 07.30
USS SIMPSON is the 46th PERRY class frigate and the 21st ship in that class built by Bath Iron Works in Maine. Keel Laid: February 27, 1984. Launched: August 31, 1984. Commissioned: November 9, 1985. Propulsion system: two General Electric LM 2500 gas turbines, two 350 Horsepower Electric Drive Auxiliary Propulsion Units. Length: 453 feet (138 meters) Beam: 47 feet (14.32 meters). Draft: 24,6 feet (7.5 meters) Displacement (weight) : 4,100 tons. Speed: 28+ knots. Aircraft: two SH-60 Sea Hawk (LAMPS 3) Armament: one Mk 75 76mm/62 caliber rapid firing gun, MK 32 ASW torpedo tubes (two triple mounts), one Phalanx CIWS. Homeport: Mayport, Fla. Crew: 17 Officers and 198
Photo and information: Various websites of the US Navy.
I was hoping to see all those Dutch buses again on the dock. Last year they had just bought a whole pile coaches from the Dutch OAD company. This is a local bus company operating in the North Eastern part of the country (although they also do international bus tours) who must have decided to upgrade and exported the older buses to Estonia. They were there but the livery had now been changed to that of the new owners. Most guests go on tour as the town and the surrounding area is something that has to be seen. Luckily most Estonians speak English so communication is quite easy. The local language belongs to the language group that incldues Finnish and Bulgarian and has very little relation with Anglo Saxon or Germanic. Even if you speak several languages, it is very difficult to pick up comparable words. On the bridge we never have a clue what the pilot is discussing with the outside world, until he gives the translation. Luckily the Tallin pilots are very professional at doing that.
Departing from Tallinn, is something that I like to do on time as we have a fairly tight schedule to St. Petersburg. We have to be at the St. Petersburg pilot station at 4 am. in the morning because it takes 3 hours of slow speed to get to the dock. On the way out we passed the Simpson again, who had been parked all day under our bow. They were throwing a deck barbeque or similar sort of party for what looked like the local US embassy. At least there was a number of American CD plated cars on the dock mixed in with some official Estonian vehicles. At least they had a beautiful ship to look at, while we sailed past them and of course I could not resist to happily honk the horn.
The helicopter deck ready for the 5 pm party.
Tonight is an hour forward, as St. Petersburg keeps Moscow time so it will be a short night again. However it is supposed to be a sunny day tomorrow, with fairly cool temperatures and thus a perfect day for sightseeing.
July 3, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Tere tulemast Tallinnas, Captain !
The grammar profs lost an ‘S’ in the Suurupi 3 Pilot station, then it means “Big Soup” 3 Pilot station 🙂 (kidding).
I sure remember standing at a bus stop when the first 2nd-hand bus came cruising through the small town of Tartu; it was a dark blue, shiny, double coach bus, as I exclaimed out loud “WOW”! Once living in TLL , I made a collection of photos of the buses coming from the Netherlands.
One could also learn new languages in the buses as all the signs were still in the languages of the countries they came from! If you’ll pardon me, Captain; Estonian belongs to the Finno-Ugric language group along with Finnish and Hungarian. I won’t tell you what I thought of the language when I first heard it … And, there was NO English (to speak of) in Tartu when I came.
Thank you for honking the Prinsendam horn in the harbour so the Estonians get to know the HAL ships, too. The Costa cruise ships are pretty liberal and loud when they’re in !