TuleTulemine. Pärnu.

Final day. It started with a rain. There was not going to be a long paddling - we were already almost in Pärnu. There would have to be a major ceremony, where we hand the fire over to Ruhnu Karu - yet another historic shiptype resurrected, namely a small cargo boat of Ruhnu Swedes. Ruhnu Karu would then take the fire to Tallinn by sea. We needed to time our arrival to the minute, so our first target would be Pärnu rowing club, some half a kilometer from the bridge where the final ceremony would take place. A bit of an extra thrill was provided by the fact that somehow nobody seemed to know what we are supposed to do on that final ceremony. For sometime there was even talk that dugouts will be left out of the ceremony as rivermouth had been quite rough last night. Keeled-over dugouts straight before TV cameras and many spectators would not be exactly the Grande Finale we wanted.

So we set out, hoping for better weather and leaving Turm with its crew doing their basic galley slave drills - big Honda outboard had been ruled out this time and everyone would have to row for real. Which, as I had already heard from those who had tried, is not simple at all. Under Pärnu new bridge there was bunch of friends singing and waving with beer bottles. As rain was getting stronger and there was no sign of Turm yet, we took a break there, spent mostly singing. When Turm finally showed up, nobody bothered to leave anymore. Finally Andres decided to chase Turm and we followed them. Others came reluctantly behind.

Next hours we spent sleeping, eating, chatting, cleaning boats and, yes, you guessed it, singing. Everyone had been worrying and wondering how Lauri can take such a long trip. Well, he proved to be quite unharmed, putting kilometers behind him on a rowing ergometer. By the time we left he would have been easily back in Sindi, at least. As usual everyone had been worrying about wrong person. I had forgotten belt bag yesterday. Now I had forgot my backpack to Reiu that I got back, fortunately, and this list would grow before the day ended. My absent-mindedness was taking epic dimensions.

Just before we started to leave, my wife arrived. At least I did not have to "lend" cigarettes from others for a while. She then hastily departed again, to have at least some chance to fight for a viewing place on the bridge or riverbank. As soon as we got going Jaan discovered that there was one boat with 100% noobs on the river now. He got somewhat agitated so we were quite lucky to be still half a kilometer away from the bridge. Fortunately we still had some minutes, and quickest crash course in paddling I have ever seen, followed. Hell of a successful, too. As we started early we were soon forced to stop, so we gathered all the boats side by side and performed an improvised dugout-ballet, turning this big boat-raft around one way and the other. As my wife later said, it had actually looked quite impressive.Our last instructions were to meet Ruhnu Karu on the other side of the bridge and then circle around it. Finally big clock on Port Artur department store showed that it's time and we attempted to form a single file. There was quite a mess under the bridge, but later pictures show quite civilized circle emerging around Ruhnu Karu. Little later Turm joined us, then boarded Ruhnu Karu. There were some fireworks in the river and somehow I discovered that my wet feet got always a light electric shock about a second before they fired. At least it kept me alert. Then Dance Festival fire also arrived from Kihnu island. Kihnlased came on their fishing boats and started to circle as well, only in the opposite direction. Judging by their speed-demon driving style it had been cold on the sea. Huge black thundercloud that had been hanging threateningly somewhere near Reiu for half an hour now spewed few lightnings and then produced a beautiful rainbow over the bridge. Quite obviously old gods were happy. For a moment we all gathered to the ships and then it was all over. We paddled to the marina and dragged dugouts to an embankment.

Only now I learned that Lauri had somehow managed to skip all the meals of the day and had been paddling all the ceremony with bad stomach pain. That extinguished all my hopes to spend an evening in Pärnu with my new friends. Now it was back home, fast. Last adventure was taking a bit of fire to us as well - strong demand from Lauri. Embankment was windy and somehow we managed to extinguish the fire that was still in our storm lantern. Fortunately there was a "copy" in Ruhnu Karu. Last hugs and back to home we went.

Girls with fire