Up Periscope

Day 74  Tuesday 14^th June 2011  

Chicken nuggets for breakfast was not ideal but it had to be done especially as I topped it with boiled vegetables – at least the coffee was good. We met one of the Finnish Harley riders in the car park. His name was Mattie and he and his pal rode down from Finland via Moscow, some 10,000 kilometres in about three weeks. His English was not too good but 100% better than my knowledge of Finnish but we managed to work out that they are aiming for Japan but had yet to buy tickets. We explained that currently tickets are sold out (as advertised in the Vladivostok Times online) but he thought that perhaps they would not have a problem but he was suffering from a HUGE vodka induced hangover at the time.

Mattie from Finland

 Talking to Mattie whet our appetites for ship spotting and we took ourselves off to the Maritime Port to have another look at the DBS Cruise DongHae ferry which was still in port. They were busy unloading mostly JCB type diggers but in amongst them all was a small green car which seemed to hold a lot of interest for the dockside workers. We soon realised why as we watched the workmen carefully and surreptitiously remove contraband and hide it under a sheet on the dock. A bit later a fork lift driver came along and removed said package and whisked it away – obviously a common and well rehearsed scene.

We got bored with watching diggers being extracted from the ship’s belly like a mechanical caesarean so we walked along the port road until our attention was drawn by the striking up of what was obviously a military band. We walked a bit further and inside the naval base we could see a passing out parade in full swing. We stopped and watched and took some pictures unsure of whether we were committing a mortal sin by photographing the Pacific Fleet on their home turf. Nearby, a group of schoolchildren were busy in their art class drawing pictures of the harbour but not of the warships moored therein so I had a feeling that perhaps our pictures would not meet the approval of the authorities but there were a couple of Korean tourists around also taking photos so I guess we will all be in jail together.

Left, Right, Left, Right

 

Just across the road from the naval base was a submarine, C56, which was part of the Pacific Fleet. It was built in Leningrad in and taken by rail to Vladivostok in 1944 where it sailed across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and saw action in the Atlantic where it has claimed to have destroyed ten German U-boats. The impressive war relic has been opened to the public as a museum and we took the opportunity to go aboard. Disappointed at first because the interior had been totally removed and it was a walk through affair with large rooms but this changed halfway along the vessel when it reverted back to climbing through door holes, a peek up the periscope and entry (again through a door  hole) into the torpedo room complete with torpedos all unarmed of course. Along the back of the sub was a wall of names of seamen lost in the war and it had thousands of sailors named on its huge slabs and there was also an eternal flame burning in memory of the tragic losses.

We headed up the hill into the park behind the gold domed church and people watched for a while opposite the old theatre before going into the old department store pronounced Gum where I sought out and bought a pair of nail scissors to attack the in-growing toenail that had been plaguing me for the last couple of days.  

All of this sauntering around up and down hills had eaten up a fair chunk of the day and we were now headed for early evening so we went to the local shop and bought some supplies for our daily meal – today was to be Tuna fish and onion sandwiches with fresh fruit and beer plus a packet of crisps for Mark and a bag of M&M’s for me.  

 Oink !