The Volvo Ocean Race has arrived in Boston. It’s not exactly a Viking invasion, but pretty cool nonetheless, especially since Viking invasions don’t happen anymore.
Viking sailing genes die hard; one of the two Swedish-backed teams, Ericsson 4, is massacring the competition. Their theme song is a good choice: Enter Sandman, which was played as they pushed off to compete in the in-port race yesterday.
Team Puma also deserves honorable mention for picking I’m Shipping up to Boston as their theme song.
After watching the boats push off, my friend and I left. This is because the race occurred several miles offshore where we couldn’t see it and trying to swim out there would probably have gotten us drowned or detained by the fuzz (well, actually, we didn’t have a boat we could watch it on ourselves and had other commitments that same day). So we went to the nearby seafood shack instead and sat down at the bar where some extreme ocean sailors came and surrounded us with their salty seadoggishness. One of them asked my friend how his fried oysters were and cursed his fate with an angry “Damn!” when he learned that they weren’t the best ever because that’s what he had ordered, too. I felt for him.
