Estonia 2 Eurosonic

N 53° 12' E 06° 32'

Groningen

January 15, 2010

Hello, readers! We are in Groningen, and have successfully poisoned local people and festival organizers, so now they think we are pretty cool.

It all happened yesterday next to Eurosonic Noordeslaag ticket service, otherwise knows as the Kassa, where we parked our ship.
On board, Svjata Vatra, armed with two drum sets, an accordion, a trombone, some magnificent human voices, and, of course, a scythe gave an impromptu acoustic concert, while the ship crew served the poison (otherwise known as Estonian traditional food) – deep fried pork ears, 70 proof moonshine, shots of the legendary herb liquor Vana Tallinn, hot porter beer and sugar-coated cranberries. As a special treat people could play a truly old-school game of sawing a birch log with a two-man saw.
We had fun, they had fun, we made noise, they made noise, the band got a roaring applause not just from humans, but also from a dog, who then, ignoring human food, proceeded to eat the birch log. All true!
Our Viking ship Emma plus fun and music and Twitter-fuelled sail are going to be here in Groningen on Friday as well (about 17 to 23), except for the bands. Svjata Vatra and Kirtana Rasa are busy performing tonight at the Grand Theatre. A big day for Estonian music. If you’re anywhere near us, come say hello; if not, twit us. Bye.

use #twitterboat in your tweet to see your message on the sail!

 

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N 53° 12' E 06° 32'

we arrived

January 14, 2010

…more info coming soon

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N 57° 55' E 10° 01'

It is getting loud here on Emma.

January 14, 2010

We already have two pretty noisy bands on board.
Now we have a baby too. A real one.

So what do we do now?

Let’s talk about the weather!
When we left Estonia (as good Vikings do, on Thursday), it was warm in Lappland, freezing in Miami and a reasonable minus 20 centigrades in Estonia. A massive amount of snow, too – probably 30 cm everywhere you 
went. Very strange things happened: there were masses of adult people lined outside shops anxious to buy their first pair of modern cross-country skis and then learning to use them. So we wondered if the same thing is going on right now around Groningen’s speed-skating stores. Is this the year we finally can walk on water in this beautiful city? We will find out soon. Hopefully tomorrow.

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N 53° 57' E 10° 54'

Hello, Denmark! This time we're just passing through...

January 13, 2010


Have not posted for some time, but there was a reason. 
No wind on the Baltic Sea so we all had our both hands occupied rowing towards land.
But now we are at the controls again – having successfully hijacked a ferry in Lübeck on the coast of Germany. 
Why did we hijacked it? Because it looked so big we thought it might be able to crush ice and carry our ship as well. 
So relax, as we do at the moment, let’s think about sweet noise and blinding lights and hope that our good ship Emma and the bands Svjata Vatra and Kirtana Rasa will arrive in Groningen just in time.

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N 57° 17' E 18° 45'

Loodetuul on taevaluud.

January 10, 2010

Loodetuul on taevaluud.

Which in Estonian means “a northwestern wind sweeps the sky”.

We see some friendly lights on the Courland coast and head there for a rest. Hope someone lives there. Hope they know what a sauna is (pretty safe hopes – it’s Latvia after all). Hope the sea does not freeze, before we set off tomorrow for our destined land, Groningen. And some of us hope, they have a hospital here in Courland just in case. Because we the crew of the Viking ship Emma, we seriously worry that someone of the two bands here will soon deliver a newborn baby onboard…

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N 59° 00' E 21° 51'

....

January 09, 2010

On safe waters now, nobody’s speaking much, no music either.

 

Wind: 5 balls;

Waves: 3 balls;

Speed: 12 knots;

Curse:SSW

 

A Photo from couple of days ago:

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N 59° 27' E 24° 43'

Port Noblessner

January 07, 2010

The harbour of Reval (presently known as Tallinn) is rapidly freezing, but we manage to escape the thickening ice and point our ship towards Friesland. The ship is called Emma and when we talk about it, we actually don’t say “a ship”, we say “lodi”. Lodi. See the pictures below and you will see a real lodi.

 

On board we have a roughneck crew of Henry Punahabe (Red Beard), Marko Pikkkäsi (Long Arm) and Marko Sarvepea (Hornhead) plus our special forces, the Estonian bands Kirtana Rasa and Svjata Vatra – gentle- looking people armed with monstrous weapons like a trombone, a series of drums, some things you may know and a weird-looking harp.

 

By night we pass the ancient Viking harbour Saaremaa (sorry once more, Sweden) and enter into constant snowfall and creaky noises. The Baltic Sea starts to freeze completely. Must get out the axes. After all, we have to be in Groningen by next Thursday.

 

PS: we cant upload hig-res pictures from our sat-phone. costs too much, but we’ll do our best

 

Wind: 4 balls;

Waves: 3 balls;

Speed: 8 knots;

Curses: W, SW;

Daily mileage: 154

 

(Yes, we really say “curses” and “balls” – why not!)

 

 

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