Budapest – towards Vienna

July the 25th

The Belgian barge, however, do stop for a bit of night sleep at 01:00AM. This we thank them for as when being towed behind you have to steer all the time. They will start again 05:00AM and tell us to be ready. We get a few hours of sleep and at 05:00AM they tell us we can join them to the first lock. As we slow them down almost 1km/h (again this km) we are thereafter on our own. But we are very grateful for those kilometres we got to go with them.

The lock is 20m high and it goes very well. But when coming closer to the top we see waves breaking over the lock ports. That is not supposed to be on the Donau! When they open the ports the waves of almost a meter in height comes into the lock. That is quite a challenge as we have to wait for Dorneck to go out of the lock first. Ellide Embla is jumping up and down alongside the north side of the lock. We bear off and the fenders are doing their job but not for so much longer. Finally Dorneck is out of the way and Olga is left to bear off while I jump down in the cockpit and give full fwd. All goes well, without a scratch, but it was quite exciting. At least it kept your mind from other things.

Coming out of the lock the wind is strong and it is a wide canal “new Donau” that is narrower in the lock end. It builds up quite a bit of sea in that end and we have to secure the mast a bit better on deck as it starts to move. After that we steam on towards Bratislava and Vienna with not so much left after the speedy lift with Dorneck.

In the evening we come in to Bratislava. The current has built up a bit but it is not until really in Bratislava that it really starts getting annoying. The pontoon for customs and police is occupied and we decide to be illegal immigrants as we will only stay one night and then continue to Vienna. We go further and coming downtown the current is stronger and stronger. No place to moor. We finally decide to moor at a pontoon where the passenger boats normally moor. It looks deserted and we try to find someone to ask.

It turns out the guy on the hotel ship on the next pontoon knows the owner of the pontoons and he calls him and asks. He says it is 90% sure no ship will come in during the night and if there is it will come in the morning, around 05:30 -06:00AM. Just to be sure he will check and call me. If he do not call it will be OK to stay there.

We eat dinner in vicinity of Ellide Embla in case something should turn up. Nothing does and no one calls. We therefore take a little stroll through the city. The city of Bratislava has a lot of charm. It is Saturday night and a lot of people are out. There is some pride festival or similar going on. Katja is very amused by a guy with moustache, dressed as a girl, who tries to play the flute for her. He cannot play the flute is her comment. Otherwise there are not many children out at 23:30PM in Bratislava.