On the European Waterways from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea

In Travemünde we left the Baltic Sea in October and sailed until December 2006 on the german waterways with mostly beautiful sunny autumn weather. All the waterways and locks in Germany are very well maintained and for pleasure boats, free. The hardest part was the River Rhine, up stream, from Duisburg to Mainz. Slowly but surely Prüveda took that hurdle, even though many “know it alls” told us we couldn’t manage the River Rhine with only 42 horsepower.            

After a mild winter break in Offenbach on the River Main, we started our voyage on the 1 April 2007. Four months later we had completed the following water ways:

The Main: Mainz – Bamberg 527 Km / 35 locks

The Main/Danube Channel: Bamberg – Kehlheim 171 Km / 16 locks

The Danube: Kehlheim – Sulina 2411 Km / 18 locks

We really can recommend this waterway trip. We passed through ten countries and saw the most famous sites and beautiful cites like: Würzburg, Bamberg, Passau, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Golubac, The Iron Gate, Russe, Tulcea, Sulina and many more. We also liked the quiet time out in nature, at anchor. We discovered many birds and enjoyed observing them. There are still not many pleasure boats on this waterway, and after Budapest you find hardly any marinas. For the night we often stayed at anchor; sometimes we could sidetie to a freighter. The local people were friendly and usually very helpful.

After the last lock (Djerdab II) in the Danube the navigation got very difficult, with shallower water and many dangerous sandbanks. It’s hard to believe, the Danube is in several places about one Km wide, but only fifty meters can be used for navigation. Often the buoys are missing, or in our opinion, located in the wrong places.          

Like many other boats, we also ran aground with Prüveda. Shortly after we crossed the border to Bulgaria it happened very quickly. Fortunately we were travelling together with a French couple at that time. They helped us with their small boat to place our two anchors, and we tried to pull Prüveda off the bank. We worked the whole day, very hard, without success. Prüveda moved two times, but the situation got even worse. She was lying crosswise to the stream and was heeling 20 degrees.

Then a mysterious thing happened, the wind picked up very strong and blew from the same direction as the current. Suddenly Prüveda turned back with the bow to the stream, Wolfgang pulled in the anchor line and Ursula helped with the engine, and Prüveda was free-swimming again. What a relief! The next days we chose to follow the freighters, as they usually know the “road” and the shoals better than we do.

While we were travelling through Bulgaria and Romania the temperature rose to 43 degrees and caused many deaths. In this heat wave we put up our mast in Russe Bulgaria. Different kinds of birds like pink pelicans, herons, ice bird and many other species welcomed us to the biggest European natural resort; the Danube Delta. Proud and happy we finally arrived at the Black Sea where we were looking forward to sailing.

On the Black Sea we made an excursion to Odessa, Ukraine. We also wanted to see the Very famous half island Krim, but the weather and wind were against our plan. It was a rough sail in the Black Sea; at times we had quite big waves and stormy wind. Prüveda raced downwind, with two panels up and sometimes very hard rolling in these high and shaggy waves. We were glad to leave the steering to our Hydrovane wind steering, which always does a good job. On that trip we also had serious problems with the engine, because of dirty fuel, so we decided to sail to Constanta, Romania and then further to the Bosporus in Turkey. After three days and two nights sailing, we arrived in the Bosporus with its magnificent city, Istanbul. We stayed for 12 days in Istanbul in the Marina Fenerbahce on the Asian side. We had to get the Turkish Transitlog and that for we needed tow days until we found all the offices to get the stamps. Beside all the paperwork, we visited many interesting places in Istanbul and we had a great time. We sailed the Marmara Sea enjoyed many little fishing harbours with all the friendly people. After leaving the Dardanelles, we found a nice and protected harbour for the wintertime in Ayvalik, Turkey, in the Northern Aegean Sea.