Treibgut

The call of the Delta

When we woke up in the morning the weather turned out to be slightly better than the last two days. Having rescued Radus catfish we leave torwards Tulcea with one fishing road left in the gangs of the goblin, moby dick or somebody else. Playing chess and cardgames we enjoying the last seamiles to Tulcea the portal of the Delta.

After landing at the old austrian paddlesteamer “Republican” from WW I we opt for the traditional Restaurant. Rene and Steffi going for a night strall around town finding some nice security guy and a punky fruit and veg sales girl.

The Flossbusters park right next to us once again. The next morning Cpt. Georg, the former chef mechanic of the Republic gives us an impressive tour arround the old ship and helps us with all other business. At 2 am he puts on the last load of washing for us and jumps on the *keks* to enjoy a can of beer. He s been on this boat the last 40 years and became sort of part of it. Ilies enjoys the engine room part while Steffi s posing in the historic cpt. uniform.

We visited the Delta museum/aquarium and preped all up to leave for the delta.

Dr. Mech.

Back in the days

Fashion Disco @ Moldavia

The heavy winds of the last evening became a little storm and when raindrops entered the scene at about 6 oclock in the morning even the strongest left teir sleeping positions on the roof top. Despite the droped temp and the blowing winds we decided to start the engine. Of course we had to get the raft out of the mud first. Finallz we took up some speed and startet a spontaneous party to keep us warm by crazy dancing. We put a lot of funny looking cloths and other pieces of cotton on to be dressed fancy and therefore leave a wiered impression to the moldavian fishermen. our almost brand new europe flag was dancing in the wind, leading our way with its energetic sound. After entering the waters of our little neighbour and waving to puzzled fishermen we took a a quick piss and left for the Ukrainian/Romanian-zone counting seamiles…

Although our lunch was rich of carbonhydrates (mammaligastuff for desert!) we all felt the cold was slowly stealing powers. So it got a very special operatian getting out of a fisingnet (great river-crabs in there, too! srz no pic possible). In the dark we landded next to a high river bank that had to be accessed via balancing our plank from the roof. But we have been rewarded with a big fire. Probably the most interesting and beautiful we have seen so far after dropping in a big piece of wood which was most likelz struk by a lightning (no pics either.. cant catch that mood without having five of them )… so this evening ended with some philosophical thoughts and a short storry by rafik schami.

ps: the “three strikes”-tactics works really well against mosquitos… means using three different kinds of chemical warfare! use it in the swamps and not in the internet (this one goes especially out for our frensh friends).

Mat left today on this hot n dusty day back home. Staying in Galati for the afternoon after a theatrelike landing we find ourselfs in the center of attention, in this industrie concrete city. “Walls of steel and concrete create apathee and hate” is written on one of those grey cubes. Though it seems people fall in love here very easylie. There are about 25 weddings on this saturday and little partys at every corner. Besides that the university town of Galati is pretty deserted. We refuled the at the Benzinska Pumpa and the raft spirit with some positive energy from a local yogamagician that joins us during our special watermelon ceremony.

Flyingkeks

We take off back to the other side of the danube, landing at a little beach. Strong winds rolling in and shake us all night. Temperature drops about 25 C and for the first time its actually *bad weather*. Since Galati we are officially on the ocean. Well at least the signs changed from km to sea miles. We notice as the ships are getting a lot bigger and the strong wind from last night developed into a little strom.

Right now we are parking next to a big restaurant ship in braila (we pirated the house number 172 – have a coffee with us if you are around). it’s a a very special romanian city, a little bit like regensburg… a university, lot of old houses (greek-turkish-russian mixture) and international flair with friendly, helping, people (non-stop)… successfully done land trip with culture (really!), shopping, talking, walking, dating flyergirls, drinking braga (try it if u can) eating “wannafuck” and zapzaraping new treasures (still secret might get a pic soon?)!
yesterday late in the evening we helped our friends (we meet them in hrshova(?) the first time) from the http://www.flossbusters.de/ land next to us and had a strong and healthy “friendship tea” together. today started early because of the hot sun… some of us finally had a real SHOWER (paid with our postcards too… the people seem to really like our “pirate-money”!). Who wants a free postcard? leave us an address in the comments below and we send an old rum bottle to yours.

time to get out of this (very secret and the onlx one around 30 km looks like but they have cs, warcraft and unreal tournament installed here) internet-hole. looking forward to new adventures and the delta… watch out for the next episode (with mosquitoes and douglas adams)!

A day full of special operations. While Flo and Rene are going on an intercultural land mission throughout some of the most rural areas of Romania discovering how an Alien would possible feel coming from outer space. To our surprise we didnt take any money with us, but we are able to pay with postcards.

Meanwhile the *Keks* is having an rondevue with the other Danube Raft and their crew exchanging and celebrating the intercultural Danube slow float union.

After a sugarfree coffee we left this beautiful place, and moskito soaked isle. While drifting we heard loud music from a nature river bank… a wedding ? Before finding out we had to loose the rescuejackets and rescue them and finally throwin the achor into water without fixing the line …. {sugar free coffee…} But we were lucky. One of the fishermen caught his hook in there and we could dive it up. Had then a little party with these fishermen and their big soundsystem.

Later we meet the river police: You got papers? Ilie: Yes ! Fine, the right side is nice.

This beautiful sunday morning we tried to check out from Bulgaria as they couldnt do our papers the day before. Appointed at 9am still a bit weak from a very exhausting night, no one is there to give us the stamp. A couple of hours later some border police officers rock up being confused and angry with us shout at us wtf we doing here and that we can leave now. Well we have to leave now. But where is Steffi (the women) they wonder. We end the game by promising not to do any illegal business and leave as soon as possible. Good old border police hospitality. Still that does not stop us from having a little sit it with the local sailing club from next door. Very kind people organising sail and boat education trips for about 200 school kids for the fun of it.

Finally we taking off, rolling slowly downstream having a little trouble with that zick zack around the islands. The currents here are tricky. We almost get sucked into a strong (apple) strudel and just manage to rescue us to an sandy island where nothing seems to flow as in the outside world. Ilie is organising an traditional Romanian Ciorba workshop discussing bout social standards in eastern Europe.

After taking in the new fishing net we leave towards the last Bulgarian town. Winds are facing us and some weird currents but we safely land at the wall (not the ponton) of Hotel Drustar where we are told to pay 15euro for a 3 h stay (water, shower toilet etc. is extra cost) We decide to use their toilet and leave for good. A couple of hundred meters further down we actually find a good old public landing Ponton, turns out to be our home for the night. Flo and Ilie go shopping and stocking, while Radu and Mat watch the Keks. Steffi and Rene go to the Capitania only to find out we have to come back there in the morning with the whole crew. howell papers, stamps and waiting game – business as usual … So sun is shining, flo is cooking, some are slacklineing and we enjoy the little waves and friendly people in this town (eccept the Hotel guys)

Easy morning, slacklining fishing, exploring the surroundings, turning the shopping cart into an art object to be hung in the trees or just sleeping. Everybody finds something to do… We leave after midday rater in the afternoon towards Silistra enjoying the last kilometers of Bulgarian shore. Slow pacing along we end up at the km sign 390 and decide to stay for the night. Chilly-sauce, red sauce and … and … pasta fill the bellies of hungry river people. The rest of the night is a quiete one except from the waves that shake the sleepy sailors all night

Thanks to Ilie we are able to fill up our water tanks in the morning from the ground pump. For some water is not all you need ad we end up having a fishing net {big one}

As we float along Flo gets more and more used to the funny steering of our raft with wind and currents. Painting playing cards, reading, and a nice salad n omelet round up the floating another day on big mama Danube…

At night a big, big fire gets started by mat and Flo while Radu keeps trying to get the non vegetable part of the BBQ (a snake) The shopping trolley turns out to be quite useful for the fire kitchen and serves as a roast even though Ilie is sad to see the wheels burning. But a couple of glasses later we are happily discussing the differences of Romanian and German ways of doing business and the playing silent post with easy words like DonauDampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft or friendship which turns out to soft porn …