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Longbow of Argyll - Longbow in the Baltic: the Tallinn interlude



We're moored stern-to in the Olympic marina in Pirita, about 3.5 km east of the centre of town. Like Visby, Tallinn has a medieval walled Old Town with narrow cobbled streets and wonderfully quirky buildings.

Tallinn provides a somewhat eccentric mixture of old and new: huge modern supermarkets with ever possible choice of food and grocery item, clean and efficient buses on which you can pay by mobile phone, ancient medieval buildings with hefty wooden doors, lots of people dressed in national dress and blaring house music to top it all off. Huge ferries from Finland disgorge hundreds of passengers looking to stock up on cheap booze (the "Super Alco" supermarket is right at the arrivals gate); next door in the harbour a tall ship from Sweden was offering tours up the rigging. Stalls selling dried fish and deep-fried pigs ears line the harbour, while across the road McDonalds golden arches light up a 1000- year old bit of city wall. Everything and anything goes in this town!

On a more somber note, the steps leading to the Dutch embassy were covered in flowers yesterday as a note of resect to the passengers and crew of the downed plane. Not much news of the outside world has filtered through during this Rally, but that bit certainly has.

Tallin marks another crew change for Longbow: Clare and Felix are leaving and Budgie and Dick arriving for the passage to Helsinki via St Petersburg. There is a definite level of excitement within the fleet about sailing into Russia and going to visit the ballet and all the other cultural highlights.

Last post by Clare.

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