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

August the 4th

We start from Kielheim up DMK (Donau-Main-Kanal). The canal is good. No stream, our speed increases significantly, we can easily make 7knots if we want. The canal is also relatively straight as the land is fairly flat, it looks very man-made with stoned banks and flowers all along the banks. The limiting factor is all the locks. In the morning it is no problem, we hang on to a barge that we keep the same speed as and just go straight into the locks. We can follow it until the sea water filter gets a bit clogged up from the river and canal debris, and we have to make a short stop to clean it.

the highest point of the voyage

We travel through the landscape and the farmland and it feels like we pass straight through the farms. We wave at the farmers in their tractors while they are harvesting. We are up high and we have a good view over the land. We are over 400m above sea level. Higher than the highest mountain (or hill?) in Estonia. We pass the highest point and then the canal starts going downhill. It starts with 3 locks of each 24,67m. All together we went 156,8m up and down today. Late in the evening we reach Nürnberg.

August the 2nd

After Passau the river gets really narrow and shallow. It looks like very low water here and the depth is as little as 2,3 m – 2,9 m in the middle of the mainstream. 2,5m depth is usual, all over it feels deep. There are lots of people bathing and water-skiing, but we do no longer meet commercial transport: one cruising ships and just a couple of barges.

We stand on ground for some minutes when we tried to anchor to take a quick bath.

At night we moor at some loading place for barges. It’s less than 100 km left on Donau for us.

August the 1st

We leave Linz early in the morning, as usual. There are many locks on our way, we do not count how many any longer.

Magnus feels very confident in the locks. In one of them he lets a cruising ship comes in first and he wants to come in front of it to moor at a sliding pollar (just at the lock’s master told us to). But the cruising ship is not ready with their mooring, so just when we are in line with their propeller they press the gas.

The wave coming from the cruising ship throws Ellide Embla to the other side of the lock and into the wall. It sounds terrible, but the only marks left on our boat are small scratches on the paint. The kids wake from the crash and wonder if that was another ground.



Later we try to hitch-hike with a Bulgarian boat, Power-ship going up to Regensburg. They are a little worried if they should encounter any problems with the police for giving us a lift, so we promise them to tell that we have a big problem with the motor should anyone ask. We go ca 1,5 hour with them, then they get a call that they have to come to Passau a bit faster. We go through yet another lock. The Bulgarians are used to tightening barges very hard to keep better speed, but this does not work with Ellide Embla. They are sceptical about our loose lines, so we have to go on ourselves.





We arrive at Passau in the evening. It is a beautiful city and we immediately find a good mooring place, very uncommon. While looking for a place to eat dinner at the kids meet a lady who can speak Swedish. She is a singer and will sing at a local Jazz concert in an hour. The kids are invited to come and listen, so they would not stop talking about that until we go to listen to the lady. Katja is fascinated by the lady and listens attentively. Later on the lady invites Katja to come up to the scene. Katja is not too shy to follow up to the scene and even sings a little, to a cheering German audience and proud parents. A jazz festival was also good hearing something else than the sound of a diesel engine.

July the 31st

The first thing planned this day is the motor repair. Magnus goes round the area in a taxi trying to find a diesel repair. In the end he finds a Massey Fergusson’s dealer who has some pipes in the used parts, but none is exactly the same. He takes a couple that seem to be the same length and bend them in place. This seems to work out, so we shop some food and leave for Linz in the afternoon.

In Linz Olga suggests to moor not in a yacht marina, but in the commercial harbour, she thinks we might find a barge on the way upstream. At least there’s lots of mooring space here, so we stay and take the chance of seeing Linz by night.

July the 30th

We start with going through the lock. This is starting to be a bit of routine although there are still some incidents happening depending on if the locks have sliding pollars, what other ships we go through with, what end the stream from the filling comes from etc…

We aim for a village named Mauthausen that the captain on Mercur 205 said was pretty. When we get closer to the last lock (for the day) Magnus takes a little starboard to make way to two bigger ships. There is a green buoy between us and the land, and we have at least 10 m to the buoy. The second ships for some reason gives us a warning and just a couple of seconds later we understand why as we feel Ellide Embla softly goes aground.

But we do not want to miss the chance to go through the lock together with the ships (there’s always a hope to get to go with them too), so Magnus presses the motor as much as is possible and after some doubtful seconds we feel that the ground does not hold us any longer. But the gear sounds very strange.

We manage to come into the lock in time and stay with one of the boats. They are moving Donau-on-tour exhibition (unfortunately they go too fast for us) and we are filmed by their cameramen. They are interested what a Swedish sailing yacht is doing here and the kids get ice-cream, just in the middle of a lock.

Some kilometres out of the lock Magnus rushes down to the motor to discover the injector pipe broken at the same place. We come into Ennhafen port and try to moor at the bunker-pontoon, but the guys there recommend us to go over to the other side and moor at a barge there, is has no motor left, so most probably will not move J. So we do, and find ourselves in a container terminal.

july the 29th

For once we have no alarm on and sleep until we wake by ourselves. When we wake up we find about 6 cruising ships moored, 3 of them on our pontoon, and a lot of retired people on Donau cruise, strolling around in the town. It does not make them or us disappointed. We leave Dürnstein in the afternoon.



We decide to continue until we find a good place to anchor. But the river is quite narrow and without good anchoring places. As it gets dark and we have difficulties finding an island where we planned to anchor. When we try we do not get any hold with the anchor. It is no sand, only rock on the bottom, and our anchor, the CQR is not particularly good on that type of bottom. We therefore continue a bit further, until about 3AM when we approach a lock. There is a pontoon we can moor at to get some hours of sleep.

and some postcards, of course :)

prison of Richard the Lionheart

july the 28th

Late in the evening we moor in a little village, Dürnstein – on our sketchy map it looked like there should be an old church or castle to explore. The pontoon was very convenient – a sign said that you were allowed to stay there and it was built so that you could do it without being in way for bigger cruising ships.

Ellide Embla, picture is taken next morning, in better light

We had already had dinner, but decided to stroll into the village, stretch the legs. The village was totally asleep, but we found a small wine-bar and decided to have a drink. The place surprised us first by not having beer and second by not having coke J, we get local homemade wine and homemade grapes’ juice. When we asked the owner what “dorf” this was he got very offended and told us that this was in fact a “stadt”. A very old town, and the smallest in Austria,400 inhabitants. It is famous for having imprisoned the English king Richard the Lionheart. On top of the hill they have ruins of a castle from the 12th century. It was destroyed by the Swedes (centuries ago though) the owner of the bar told us. Before leaving the wine bar we decided to have a look at the village and the castle the next day. The owner said it would be more tourists tomorrow as they receive ca 1 million tourists a year here, but all of them are “day-tourists” coming with the cruising ships or bicycles he added.

leave Vienna

Astrakhan, the Ukrainian boat had to stay in Vienna overnight to get bunkering next day at noon. So, we got some hours for sightseeing (back by 17:00PM they told us). Scared by so strong stream as it was between Bratislava and Vienna, we did not feel like going ourselves, and Astrakhans crew thought it OK if we go with them to Linz, their destination port.

At 16:00PM however we get a scary call from Astrakhans crew: a water-police have been over to them and ordered us to come over within two hours, there was some problem they said. Well, the only problem we knew about was that we never checked in into EU-Schengen, but it should not be a problem as Ellide Embla has a Swedish flag we thought, being a bit lazy.

We came back to the boat within half an hour and the Ukrainians lent Magnus a bicycle so he would get faster to the police-office which is situated a couple kilometres away. Magnus is back very fast, it took the policemen ca 20 secs to look through the passports and the ship-papers (they more or less lost the interest seeing we actually are EU folks). But the Ukrainians wondered how much Magnus had to pay to get away with it.

Well, the Ukrainians did not get bunkered that day. Instead they got to know that their company had not paid for diesel for quite a while so they will not get bunkered unless the debt is paid. And knowing the economical situation in their country, the crew got very disappointed (well, if we understood it right they are not fully paid for the stop-time, and they did not know how long they will have to stay in Vienna, and moreover, they had so little diesel that even generator motor will have none in two days).

No good news for us, but we decide to stay another night and see if there are any other barges for hitch-hiking in the morning. While kids are playing in a play park ashore, Borja, one of the Ukrainians, comes to Magnus and asks him to buy some vodka for him, a cheap one, since their captain has forbidden the crew to go ashore. As soon as possible, please J, and do not mention this to anyone. It’s ok with us, we will go ashore anyway to find a nice restaurant. But, unexpectedly it’s almost 9:00PM and the local shops look very much closed. Some hour later we find a gas station which is almost closed (they were just closed but opened the door for us).

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.

Bratislava,the exciting part

same day, July th 25th

bad mooring in Bratislava

When ready to sleep (some ice-cream later) we slowly stroll down to the pontoon. When turning round the corner to the pontoon we do not see Ellide Embla, only a huge cruising ship. First thought is that we went to the wrong pontoon, but a second later I realize it is the correct one. How can the cruising ship be so close when Ellide Embla is there? I rush down and see that the cruising ship is actually 5-6m from the pontoon giving some space for Ellide Embla while 3 guys try to move her (to where???). I jump onboard and start the engine. During that time Olga and the kids come down and the guys help them on board. Full speed ahead while Olga take care of the lines with help from the guys. We shout a “thank you” to them and now hope that no one will call.

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.

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.

Budapest

July the 23rd

When we wake up, Mercur has already left for bunkering diesel. Thomas has been talking to them and it will take them a few hours before they are back and will head for Vienna. We’ll use that time to drop the Andersson family off and set off to a pontoon in the city on the Pest side. We find one close to the hotel they will stay at. Two Hungarians come looking at Ellide Embla. One just asking if we have any Swedish beer aboard and the other if she is built in Scotland, he has seen the CQR anchor that is made there. While Olga and Daria go searching for ice-cream I decide we shall stay one day in Budapest and we sail for the marina that Hans found for us.
Passing through Budapest on the river, although it is still early hours, is like a traffic jam. There are cruising ships, small ferries, jet ferries crisscrossing and one has to be quite alert not to run in to any of them, or let any of them run into you from the aft.






We found the marina were Hans said it should be. They showed us a place to moor and after some formalities and a shower we took a taxi to the city. In Budapest the first thing we bought was ice-cream. It turned out 4 small ice-creams cost as much as taxi from the marina to centre. Taxi is cheap, ice-cream is expensive in Budapest. The city is very beautiful but it is quite a bit of a tourist trap. There are tourists everywhere and sightseeing tours etc…



The marina is excellent with a service department for Volvo Penta. I borrow some tools to try to fix the hard-to-turn steering wheel but it turns out it need more than that. I also find a little oil leakage on the connection to the pressure gage. Something easily fixed when at a marina with service department.

Bezdan to Monach

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.

another meeting with Mercur 205

July the 20th

We meet Mercur 205 on the river as it turns out they did not have to stay as long as expected on the border in Velico Gradiste. They are now at anchor and waiting for orders from their company of how to continue. We get a very warm welcome and stay the night moored alongside and have a bit of a Romanian party.

a drink with captain Jakob first

and crazy dancing :)

Beograd to Novy Sad

July the 18th

We leave Beograd next morning after a fast shopping. Micael waves us good-bye. The day is very hot and we rather stay inside.

Morning shower

In Novy Sad we check in with the local border police. They find out that we have not registered the change of crew in Beograd, which is “ne dobre”, but they decide to do nothing about it and wish us a pleasant stay in Novy Sad (but we promise them to leave the city at 6:00PM). We do some shopping in Novy Sad – a COLD beer and a local wine and have a lunch at a pizzeria.

Novy Sad (Ellide Embla looks so small on this river)

arrive to Beograd

Friday, July the 17th




We go all night and arrive to Beograd next morning. We shall change the crew here, Per and Hans want to take train to Budapest and Micael will fly home.

New crew arrves to take the voyagefrom Beograd to Budapest - the Andersson family.

Vice-president of the marina greets the captain welcome and offers us stay and all the facilities at his marina free of charge, the only condition is that we should spread a good word of Serbia in the EU, which we are glad to do, as long as it concerns Beograd or Engel Marina.

Old and new crews at lunch in Beograd.

Serbian border

Thursday, July the 16th

Thursday morning we are waked by the Mercur 205 crew. We are at Veliko Gradiste, a small town on Serbian side of the river, ca 15 km before we shall enter Serbia on both sides. Mercur will anchor the barges and we will go together to the border police.

We moor and the skipper leaves with all the papers. It is ca 8:00 AM, but already hot. Olga wakes the kids to play in the playground which lies just 30 m from the boat. She herself goes through nearby streets in hope to find an ATM and get some local cash to buy ice-cream for the crew, but there are none and the café would not accept a credit card.

An hour later two female police arrive with our passports. They compare us to the photos in the passports and tell us to stay inside the boat until we get our passports back, some ten or fifteen minutes later.

Magnus comes back and tells how many papers he had to fill in. Now he should wait until he gets a paper that we paid the tax for passing through Serbian part of Donau, ca 60 EUR. A guy comes with the paper an hour later, but still no pass-polices. Olga and the kids want to go ashore (so they do), and Magnus goes and asks for their passports. He gets them back, just the three of them. Then Olga decides to go into the town to get some local cash and ice-cream.

We wait and wait, but the control – they call it “revision” here – is not ready. It goes even worse for Mercur, during the revision the border police finds some flies in the cargo on barges. So they will have to stay until Monday, threaten the police.

Girls take a bath in the river whil waiting.

Magnus decides that we shall not wait for Mercur, he finishes our revision. We want to have a dinner inland and then leave for Beograd. A police comes by (we bet we were watched all the time) and informs us that it is ok to go inland, but first we have to go through the passport control again since we are checked-out at the moment. To go into the town at the moment is a “big offence”. Magnus cannot hear of more paperwork and we leave at once.

no restaurant's dinner this time, but nevertheless very tasty


and a good view.

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.