Helsinki – The nightmare ferry crossing to Estonia
It hadn’t seemed like 10 mins when the alarm was going off for us to start getting showered and dressed etc for our journey to Estonia. I turned and spoke to my room mates and brothers and asked them how they were feeling. They said the long drive and concentration levels required had taken their toll and they were both absolutely shattered. They asked me why don’e we sleep an extra couple and hours and go to the last breakfast serving at 10 am. I phoned through to where Robbie and Dan were sleeping, I certainly didn’t get any grumbles about being able to sleep in for an extra 2 hours. In fact, I think Robbie was back asleep before I actually put the phone down!
Again the hotel extended their hospitality beyond the norm and allowed us a banquet feast way after 11 am as it had been the first time I had been able to get into a shower, for too many days to mention, assisted by my two brothers. Clean socks and underwear, shave and a full stomach we set off in high spirits for the ferry port. Our enthusiasm was somewhat crushed as we arrived at several booking agents, made lots of additional phone calls, only to be told they were either booked up til late afternoon or there was no wheelchair access to get us from the car deck to the passenger lounges on board for the 2 hours journey to Estonia. After an hour of frantic discussions we managed to get aboard the 5.30pm ferry after speaking to some very kind people in Estonia itself, however, my phonetic alphabet needed some work and their level of English was not good but the one thing that certainly had a common denominator was using the first letter of a country or a famous pop star or football team.
We had to be at the ferry port for loading at 4 pm before departure. We decided to drive back into Helsinki as some of the guys were feeling hungry again and after 2 weeks away David was dying for a Chinese.
As we boarded the ferry for Estonia some comments were made as to the number of years this dear old vessel had been in service, or in fact, when it was serviced last. We sat at the back of the ferry where we believe there was internet access and a viewing deck but only to be deafened by he engine noises and the breaking ice as we moved away from the dock. I have to say, several references were made to the Titanic being unsinkable and I certainly didn’t fancy our chances in the icy cold deep blue seas below.
Knowing that plans had changed and we were not going to be staying in Estonia that night and needed to move onto Latvia to try and make up the lost day I phoned our able assistant back in the UK, Chip, to try and find us a hotel. He texted me through the name of the hotel which seemed reasonably priced and did have an accessible bedroom. However, we lost all phone contact as we were 45 mins out of port and heading for Estonia. Robbie and I, however, had managed to unlock the laptop and some of our information but it seemed we had picked up a virus in Helsinki and were finding it practically impossible to access our plans and back up info regarding Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. However, we managed to find the hotel Chip had told us about and from the pictures on their website and info provided it seemed a reasonable hotel and good value. This is always difficult to judge from a website and as none of us had been to Latvia before we could not really work out the value of their currency. Time was pressing on and we would soon lose internet access so we had to make a decision.
On arriving in Estonia we drove off the ferry and pulled over to make the phone call ahead to the hotel in Latvia. We then discovered that the time in Estonia was, in fact, 2 hours ahead of the UK and when we thought we would be arriving at 7.30pm it was now 8.30 pm. We would need to fuel up our vehicles before the drive to Latvia as we had run them down to almost empty, with the exception of our reserve tanks, as we had heard fuel of cheap in eastern europe and we wanted to make good use of the low costs. We filled the vehicles, bought a local map, as we had failed to update the sat nav, only to find that my credit card was not being accepted due to the bank stopping it for security reasons as it was being used in Estonia. We then had to find a way of getting local currency from our remaining Finish and some Norwegian currency. Not an easy task when hardly anybody speaks any english.
This now meant that we were leaving Tallin at around 9.15 pm with a 4 hr journey to our hotel in Latvia. They were long straight roads and good driving conditions and almost completely clear of snow, however, the huge numbers of trucks heading south again hampered our progress and passing them was not easy in the dark in totally unchartered terratory. We arrived in the Parnu district knowing we still had over an hour to travel out of Estonia, the roads had slowed down considerably, it was approaching 12.30 am and our 4 hours looked more like a 7 hour journey at this stage. Little did we know that 10 mins further up the road we drove into a alledged police road and speed check area where our lead vehicle drove through and we were stopped by police waving light batons and told to pull over where I found a not so pleasant looking sargeant tapping on my window showing me a speed camera gun. He pointed at the digital set and said “you were speeding – 76 in a 50 klm zone”. I tried to explain we were unaware of any signs saying 50 klm ph and as far as we were concerned it was an 80 klm stretch of road. I asked him if I could see the gun again and pointed out to him that there was no date or registration number evident on the screen. He then agrilly pointed out that I was not driving and told to shut up and ordered Joe out of the vehicle as he was the driver. Joe was told to bring the paperwork along with him immediately to the police car sitting some 30 m behind us. They held him there for over 1.5 hrs explaining that he would have to pay a fine and that if we paid him now it would speed things up and we could be on our way, however, we only had £30 worth of Estonian currency and had also used what little we had to make up the money to buy the fuel from the petrol station. The 1.5 hrs seemed like days as we sat waiting and wondering how he was getting on in the police car. We had waited and waited at which point I made some calls back to the UK. I spoke to Gill regarding our insurance and legal cover as I couldn’t reach them on the numbers I had or even the out of hours number. With both windows open in the vehicle and the temperatures at -5 we were getting colder, more anxious and wouldn’t dare to turn the ignition key in case they thought we would try to go off and leave the scene. We had contacted our support vehicle and told them to wait around the corner in case they tried to pull them over also and demand on the spot fines to. As Joe arrived back with paperwork in hand there was a deadly silence as Joe climbed in with the 2 stoney faced policeman stood behind. As we set off Joe turned and gave us a reasurring wink and said after 1.5 hrs of trying to wear him down they let him go and demanded he pay a fine of 1,800 local currency. He was expected to be grateful for this as they had reduced it from 3,800 as they thought we were good men by doing this charity challenge for disabled children. This will have to be taken up with our AA legal advisors as it was blatently obvious and from Joe’s reactions they purely wanted money to let us proceed on our way to Latvia. It clearly shook Joe and we kept below 50 klms ph and we still had 140 klms to go still.
The thought of those big warm beds that we had seen on the internet with large russian style bathrooms certainly seemed inviting. As we pulled up at the hotel at 3 am and told to park round the back through a large underpass our hearts sunk as we entered the hotel via the back door. Its amazing what good photograph and lighting can do as they had certainly done a good job on this place. It seemed to take for ever to register our passports and details and be allocated our 3 twin bedded rooms. They were very proud of the fact they had a wheelchair accessible room with all the grab things in the bathroom etc only to find there was a 12 inch step to the room before I could get to any of the handicapped facilities that he had pointed out. At that time in the morning when you are tired and spent the only thing you can do is check the sheets for cleanliness, spray yourself with deodorant and the bed linen and was much of the room as you can, dive under the covers and try and go to sleep as fast as you can. Martin, however, was flying out at 7 am in the morning and so it was left to Joe and Daniel to drive him to the airport at 4.50 am where he left on an Air Brussels flight bound for Manchester.
They arrived back at the hotel at around 6 am so I extended our stay until around 12 noon so we could get some good rest. It would be unfair of me to name the hotel, however, you certainly didn’t see any drunks, people using substances and ladies of the night in the glossy brochure available on the reception desk. We needed to sleep and around 6 hours time decide what we were to do next as were all physically and emotionally shattered.
This blog’s great!! Thanks
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