We are arriving! At some point we start wondering if the widening up water on the horizon is already the sea and soon are convinced it is. It’s time for a cocktail on the roof and let the Keks taste the salt water! So we pass Sfantu Gheorghe and go for the beach to jump in the waves…

We made it. This raft has made all the way to the sea!

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.

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).

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)!

Mat is sick, so we feed him some A + B powder and it works. On the sundeck Rene tries to cut his beard without a mirror only to shave it later properly and the first dreadlocks start growing out of his head.

We stay in a beautiful scenery of Clay hills with strange holes and vulcanos for the night. The night is rich with sounds from nature and unknown species. Rene is sick but recovering swiftly.

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.

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 …

Keks parked at the Yacht Club Ruse

Sleep in after a long night out on the square and elsewhere. Almost everyone enjoys the first proper shower after 2 weeks but one stinker remained. neverthelesswe decide to take him along anyway and rumble torwards the city stock up supplies at the local Mr. Bricolage. Afterwards Kebap for everyone. Juhu.

Boyko, the owner of Ruse Yacht Club tells us about a couple that was shipwracked here about a week earlier. Their raft got towed by an empty cargoship and they couldnt keep up surfing the wave. They went tipside and sank in Mama Dunav. We havent parked up propably we can hear that joyfull scottish accent inviting us for a Otterkringer. Neil and Sue and their self build boat the  Roama are one of the happiest crews we met so far.

In the well organised Yacht Club Log we find a lot of river adventures rolling up and down the Danube from all ends of the world. Especially, a munich based traveler we met last september on a bike tour was joyfully inspired by the treib-gut projekt, caught our attension.