Karlstadt

Friday, Aug the 7th

Early start as usual. Magnus goes up at 6 am and sets off. At the first lock he wakes Micael. This day it looks like he has brought us luck with the locks. We go straight in to most of them although we are almost always alone.

"hello, could you help us to find diesel?"

We head for a small little town called Karlstadt. Olga thinks she has heard something special about it, but she can’t remember really what – we want to find it out. We find a little pontoon that looks like the one that the cruising ships moor at. A guy with very determined steps comes down and helps us to moor, and then says that we are most welcome to Karlstadt. There will be no ships coming in and we can safely stay during the night.

The town is very charming with medieval houses and a city wall that was certainly meant to protect the citizens from high water. We find a nice restaurant at the main square. At 20:00 h we here a trumpet played from the city hall, but no one of the restaurant guests reacts, so we conclude that it must be a usual event.

Kids taking a shower while waiting for food to be served.

Later in the evening, when we find out a little about the history of the town, it turns out that the trumpet player is Swedish (or at least was sometime in history). The town was also Swedish between 1631 and 1634. Magnus trys to comment this to some of the waitresses, but no one is interested hearing about it. The town was also severely destroyed by “American” bombing during WW2 and was not fully restored until 1974.

august the 5th

We take a taxi in to the city of Nürnberg, and have a little sightseeing. In the afternoon we do some shopping and we get going again by 15:00PM. We keep on going until it gets dark and stop after a lock and moor between two barges.

it gets really tight when we have meeting going the oppsite way

Budapest – towards Vienna

July the 26th

The current is very strong, probably around 5 knots. We are only making 1-2 knots over ground with pressing the engine quite a bit. River is narrow and no good places to anchor. As we see a barge just ahead of us I decide to continue during the night. It is also good if we ever going to get to Vienna. It goes very slow during the night. Sometimes it feels like it would be faster to anchor. When daylight breaks we see that the barge in front of us is a Ukrainian one. We can now see it only by the shape of the ship. By afternoon we have caught up with them and they agree to give us a lift.

Note that this is a fixed bouy, not a self-propelled torpedo ;)

Through the lock into Vienna we go alone and they are very impressed by Olga’s behaviour on deck. They say they will send their cooking lady to Ellide Embla for education of how to handle deck lines and knots. On the other hand they send over a pot of Ukrainian soup that Daria and Katja finish in a couple of minutes. Daria says she misses the soups from kindergarden in Harku and from Baba Lena. She thinks we should send Olga on soup-cooking education to Astrakhan, the Ukranian barge.

Onboard of Astrakhan saying thank you for the soup and talkng to tjotja Gala about economic difficulties in Ukraine

We get to Vienna late, but in time to go into the city and have a nice meal before going to sleep and for once not having to go up in the middle of the night.

Budapest – towards Vienna

July the 24th

After a bit of running here and there, filling fuel and water and paying the marina (not the cheapest one) we are on our way at about noon. It is about 280km (km on water!!!) to Vienna and we would make it in about 3 days, being able to stop also in Bratislava.

We are doing quite well during the day, keeping our 4 knots (we shall not talk kilometres per hour aboard) average and head for a stop at what looks like an interesting place. Even marked on our map. Esztergom Dom built 1250, at km 1719.

In the afternoon we spot a Belgian barge and although they seem to be going quite fast we ask for a lift. They agree to take us on tow behind them. They are doing about 7 knots over ground which is about 9 knots through water. That is over, or at the very limit of displacement speed for Ellide Embla and we are creating big waves after us. Katja wants to surf in them. The propeller shaft is making the same noise as when we are sailing and surfing in big waves.

the Belgian barge

Olga shouts that with this speed we will be drinking beer at Stephansplatz in Vienna by tomorrow afternoon. That is we look at Esztergom from the boat instead.

boatlife

Wednesday 15th of July.

Passing the lock, “Iron Gate I” will be a little later than planned, as it is closed. Convoy anchors very close to land in 4m depth. At ca 4.30 am things start to happen and me and Hans stay on deck. We slowly move into the lock. Length and width is the same as the previous but the height is 30m. I don’t want to miss this. It turn out however that it is in two steps so it is not really as impressive as expected, although still very impressive. Passing the lock goes well although when Mercur reverses full with her engines our aft lines get very tense. But as they say as long as the line is noisy it won’t break, worry when it gets quiet again.

After the lock the landscape changes and we feel more like in the Alps, with the hills around us. Just waiting to hear the bells from the cows. I go to sleep.

Waking up at 11 am I hear the agitated conversation from the crew. “I have taken a hundred pictures”, I hear Micael say. Coming out in the cockpit the scenery is amazing. Not something I imagined I would see from the deck of Ellide Embla. It is a Fiord like landscape where the river has cut its way through the mountain. A fantastic scenery.

The kids start to talk about a small animal they have been offered by a lady on one of the barges. The lady herself is a “pro”, rented for the voyage by one of the Skippers. After a coffe at another barge we pick up a rabbit and the kids are allowed to bring it aboard for a little while.

The kids also get a present from the previous Captain of Mercur – a bunch of chocolate, and Fanta, and other things. It is handed over to us by the present Captain. And this after all the stories we have heard about how much they charge for towing yachts!

Looks like we are following the time-plan, which is a good news.

Iron Gate locks

Tuesday, 14th of July.

Approaching Iron Gate II

We are getting close to the lock “Iron Gate II”. The captain of the convoys asks me to call the lock on the VHF, to ask if we can pass together with the convoy, alongside Mercur 205, but they won’t answer me. When they call from Mercur 205 in Roman it is no problem and we go through. The lock measures: Length 310m, Width 34m, Height 8m. The convoy just about fits in.





Today the weather has improved, it is hot. Ca 30 degrees and we have to fill buckets from the river and pour over us to cool down and get shower as well. We are not spoiled with hot showers and clean clothes.
We steam on towards Turnu-Severin and there we stop as Mercur is changing the crew and as well as changing some barges. We take the opportunity to fill up our supplies as they are more or less run out.
The new captain, who speaks German – the only one speaking something but Rumanian in the new crew on Mecur allows us to continue with them and as soon as they get going we moor alongside them again.

Lifting with Mercur

Sunday, July the 12th



Some of us get invited to a little party on one of the barges. A few of the other skippers are having a little “disco” with home-made liquor. One or two of them are drinking quite a lot. We communicate in a number of languages, German, Spanish, French, English, Russian and the body language. The message is still not always clear.









It is a very comfortable way to travel on a river like us, lying alongside a pushing tug, not using any diesel, having 220V, possibility to stretch your legs on a convoy of 300m and get local information from the crew.

meeting with Mercur 205

Saturday, July the 11th

We start off up the river. Run aground (AGAIN!), well, they say you shouldn’t trust the charts on Donau, since the river keeps changing. A little slower this time though.

We start looking around and find a barge of 10 ships, it goes slower than we, but the skipper decides to hang on to them – they will move slowly but stable. We can hang on in ca 3 days, until 931 km, which should be somewhere just before Rumania ends.

The skipper of Merur 205 does not run aground although handling 10 ships (plus us) altogether 300m long.

The weather gets cold and rainy. Luckily, we do not have to stand outside steering in the night. We drink and sing inside.

Bulgaian coast

Crew from Sv. Vlas to Belgrad

Friday, July the 10th (we think)

We have problem with dates – no-one aboard can say what day it is without checking one’s phone or watch. The weather is hot and in the evening a thunderstorm comes by. We wanted to moor on the Rumanian side, but found no good place. We cross the river just in time to moor by the side of Tsar Kaloyan when the storm starts.

The crew of the barge welcome us and offer a drink of homemade slivovitz (Olga loves it when it smells of ripen plums, even if she feels drunk at just a smell of it). We plan to stay the night and move on as soon as we shop for more food.

Tsar Kaloyan, the crew winking us a good-bye

Unfortunately the Bulgarian authorities have learnt that a yacht has moored on the Bulgarian side and they come on board. We have to go through the immigration and all the paper work with the Bulgarians again. This time we get some help from the crew on Tsar Kaloyan.

Just before leaving we ask if we can get some fresh water as we are running out of it. To supply it we have to turn Ellide Embla around. First time to moor with the current (ca 3-4 knots), which turns out to be a real challenge. Finally we do it successfully with only a ‘small’ bump.