July the 21st
We leave Mercur after the morning coffee; Mercur is waiting for another boat that shall arrive during the day. We want to go through the customs before Mercur, since we suspect to encounter some problems due to we have changed the crew.
neighbour-boat running around to satisfy border-policemen (this is a photo by hidden camera, since taking pictures was prohibited)
Well, we almost could get away with it – the border police were not at all interested in our passports, but the fact that we checked in 7 persons and are checking out 8 was a big problem – “ne dobre” they said. Well, some hours later the police came to the conclusion that the way to check us out was rather simple – we should destroy the “original” revision and produce a new one. The only question was who can type a new list, since they could now accept a handwritten one. But then the officer in charge wanted to go home, it was the end of his shift, so he found a river agent who had a computer and could type the list. The officer suggested we should give the agent a bottle of beer as a gesture to thank him. We so did but he said he really would have done it for free and reluctantly accepted the bottle.
Later in the evening we cleared in to Hungary. Basically the same procedure: Harbour master, passport police, water protection officer and doctor (making sure we have no infectious deceases through talking to the skipper). Only difference was that it was done in 15 minutes. Again we met Mercur and hitch-hiked with them during the night, now they are going really fast, ca 11km/h. Distances and speed are calculated in metric system while navigating on the river, which irritates Magnus endlessly.
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