rhein - main - donau with s/y momo
norway - sweden - danmark - germany
- austria - slovakia - hungary - serbia - croatia - romania - bulgaria
--- click on picture to enlarge ---
the route.
because of consistent east-wind this autumn, we did not cross the skagerakk to skagen, but went further north towards oslo fjord and with the
eastern wind we had smooth sailing down the swedish coast, crossed over to
denmark and through lille belte to kappeln/schlei in germany.
there we took the boat up, painted her under water, changes sink
anodes and put her straight back in the water.
in the meantime the mast was slipped and oiled, the engine got a complete
overhaul and a separate filter system that i can swap around while the engine runs
in case of foul diesel.
some lighthouse somewhere deep in ohio.
a seal enjoying the late summer sun.
we had some nice waves along the coast.
david managed the impossible
task of making a wave look larger on the picture than it appeared in
reallity.
beautiful sailing close to the shore between the islands in sweden.
david keeps up the spirit in the cold rain.
we both cook, here david makes a "creation de momo".
enjoying the autum sun in schleimuende, germany.
we met my friend reinhard on the way in his boat "samland" and he ordered us into this harbour for a fare-well-beer.
nordostseekanal - elbe - elbe seitenkanal - mittellandkanal - rhein herne kanal
after we laid the mast in kappeln/schlei, we motored to kiel where we
entered the canals, here in the first lock in kiel holtenau.
in the nordostseekanal the large ships have little space to maneuver
around yachts! this one passed us with only a few meters.
and the next day it seemed even closer in the fog!
we laid to cay to wait for the fog to dissolve. we had quite a lot of
fog on this trip.
the view from the boat (on the way with radar).
there is no bad weather
it is all in your mind.
der rhein (the rhine)
the rhine is probably the busiest inshore waterway
in europe.
the first 100 km on the rhine we steered mainly from one factory to the next,
stinky and ugly.
but after a while the rhine changes his face and becomes more and more
natural.
nature is beautiful once you pass the ugly factories.
we met a lot of birds on the way.
a little statistic:
from kappeln/schlei, where we laid the mast, to frankfurt/main we drove
1116 km and used 151,5 engine hours.
the lorelei has been feared by skippers for centuries.
the ferry tale says, the lorelei sang so enchanting that the skippers
sailed their boats on the rocks and drowned. we struggled in these
streams without her help!
"gevater rhein", father rhine they call it here.
one castle after the next. in the beginning it is astonishing, then it
becomes surprising and after castle nr 1293809 it seems silly that they
are there.
after a while you become uncertain weather or not to be bothered to take
up the camera for a beatiful castle or not!
a nfd.
(non fog day)
some of the ships have character.
we had strong current against us, and twice we had 0,0 km/h speed over
ground, with full engine power forward.
cozy little commercial port in the fog.
these harbours ask for good fendering!
passing ships make the water level go up and down up
to over an meter, and create strong streams and suctions.
drinking water.
the main
david is improving his "fried everything" skills.
we found a cozy little place near a park. in the morning a sneak hunter
started shooting rabbits near the boat- obviously not knowing that there
was a boat! we whistled to make us seen, and he jumped into his car and
drove off.
the silhouette of frankfurt "bankfurt" behind me.
it was in the middle of the big banking crisis we were there, but no
dead body in
a banker's suit floated by the boat.
classic morning exercise on this trip.
laying in the morning waiting for the fog to lighten.
boyes.
birds.
bird.
fog.
again.
the main was beautiful all the way along.
a quiet visitor on board.
bird.
again.
autums leaves.
this is the lovely view that met me in the morning.
me working the ropes in a lock.
momo in wuerzburg.
autumn since norway.
as we traveled south, the autumn followed with us and the winter
stayed behind us.
main-donau-kanal
passing the highest point of the journey, the european water pass at 406
m.
always enough drinking water on board.
driving canal is a bit boring, but easy.
some of the locks on the other side provide more excitement than we need:
the danube river
the danube starts in germany, our way leads us over 2400 km downstream this beautiful river, on which i spent my childhood in austria.
the rhine was beautiful, but the danube is imense, her wilderness and loneliness makes me humble and happy.
along the wachau aria in austria the river shows his strength with around 10 km/h.
finally we got a bit ahead of the winter that followed some days behind us.
back home in norway snow is falling now.
duernstein in wachau, austria.
for the first time in the almost 50 year old history of momo she can fly the austrian courtessy flag.
some statistic: from grimstad to vienna we drove 2975 km, used 368,5 engine hours and 51 days.
the wheather gods smiled to us.
in krems we were guest of the myc wachau, the club where my father was member.
a rumanian fatty makes his way upstream.
in tuln harbour we saw an atomic mutated duck.
after 3000 km driving we arrived in vienna.
here are family and friends on bord and bid us a worthy wecome!
momo was in vienna all of november.
by the end of november david started making a christmas calender.
... but sent it to norway a bit too late.
beautiful winter moon with crows circeling it.
trees in a harbour in bratislava, slovakia.
bratislava is packing a christmas building.
a hungarian fisherman beeing lucky.
... just to through the fish back in the water afterwards!
we built a hooking system to change the curtesy flag when changing between one riverside and the other.
here the slovaky flag, having hungary on the other river side.
morning on the river.
funny houses in budapest.
people are very friendly along the way.
fishermen in budapest.
the hungarian parlament on our port side.
david on the helm.
winter is catching up with us...
... but that is no reason to freeze!
the further down we get on the danube, the richer the wildlive.
the new harbour in bezdan in serbia. we are the only boat there.
for coming into serbia, we had to pay 70 euro, plus 10 euro for using the pontoon at the costums!
...
they load the trees right from the forrest into the barges.
croatian village along the river.
...
cold in the morning...
...but an hour later it is "warm enough" for a shower on deck.
in every town in serbia we have to report to the police on arrival and on departure.
in novisad we found a place on the inside of a pontoon where we could stay for free for the night.
fish on the market in novisad.
graffity in novisad.
christmas coming soon... novisad
fresh carrot soup with croutons and pumpkin seed oil.
no wonder i get fat on the way.
hey dude!
where is my garbage?
housing becoming more basic on the way.
belgrad.
the coolest raft ever!
after having been on fresh water for 3 month, we were not used to big waves any more...
that left us in a mess when we met hard wind in belgrade...
... and took down the mast, while we were having it.
the sprayhood was a bit "impressed", otherwise the problem was non after an hours work.
on the way to the anchourage momo puts her nose deep into the water.
we were stuck for 5 days because of the wind, three days on anker on the river.
belgrade - chess in the park.
the pretty commecial port of belgrade.
in the rolling seas my cigarettes fell into the sink.
i have dried fags before, works well.
in these waves we had to strap the mast well.
and the wind just wouldn't stop blowing.
the little fisher harbour of ram near the rumanian border.
with the right lightening garbage becomes beautiful.
that's why we have polititions.
ruins everywwhere.
old woman in serbia.
the half finnished church in ram.
but, church like, they start making money before the windows are in the frames!
i couldn't make up my mind whether to steal the money or the candles...
armata built by the romans 2000 years ago.
since there is no tourism here, i could just dwell in the ruins alone.
sunset on anker.
in the karpat mountains, on the way to "djernap", the iron gate.
here the river is up to 84 m deep, some of the greates depths in the world on a river.
when wind stands against tide, the large riverbarges have to stop, too.
here a time plan of our trip so far.
in three weeks david has to return to norway, the goverment demands 12 month of slavery.
we drive from sunrise...
... to sunset.
in the middle of the winter, these are short hours we can use for travelling.
christmas eve we saw the first pelicane.
an amusement park.
a lone gipsy hut along the river.
just another sunrise picture.
i am sorry, but there are so many of them in my camera.
one of the many gips camps.
a wild pig swam by us, from bulgaria to romania.
in ruse, bulgaria, we were guest in a very friendly yachtclub.
here we could wash our laundry, which left little space in the boat!
we had a visiter on board, not shy at all, the pigeon would eat from our hand.
the whole hull of momo covered in a thick layer of ice...
... doesn't make the handling of ropes easier
pelicans and chipsy camp.
also the dingy i covered with ice froom the spray.
the lock of cernavoda (= black water), the end of the danube for us.
a short trip on a canal leads us to constance, where we enter the black sea. grateful we looked back at the danube and thought of the time we spent there. from the skagerakk to the black sea we needed 76 travel days, 545 engine hours and made 4778 km good.
blogg for that travel from david (norwegian text)
summary of the travel
people
germans didn't really warn us about austrians, but there the vicious circle started...
austrians warned us about slovaks, slovaks warned us about hungarians, hungarians warned us about serbs, serbs warned us about romanians, and they warned us about bulgarians.
we met, almost without exception, friendly, helpful and kind people. in all these places no pirats, no thieves but a lot
of generosity and friendship. i was pleased to find my not so good image of the serbs reversed and i found especially bulgarians very likable!
navigation
canals: as long as you do not collide with anouther boat, there is not much you can do wrong.
rhine: we got an old set of rhine charts from m/s nelly on the way (thank you!). navigation here is easy enough, but you have to deal with heavy traffic. stream is strong at times, underpowered vessel will not make it.
main: easy cruising, little stream and less traffic.
donau: definitly the navigational challenge of the trip. the only charts available are provided by the belgian verberght, they are handdrawn and cost 300 euro for the whole river (vol I-X) and are inaccurate due to the constant change of the river. in addition they are made for commercial shipping, and do not provide much information about yachting facilities and formalities.
so in addition we used the book "die donau" by melanie hasselhorst (german), the combination of these to worked well for us.
fuel:
sparse after austria. we filled every liter of diesel from regular petrol stations for cars into jerry cans and then into our tank, because i do not trust bunker stations, especially in the winter when they are little used and water collects in the tanks. there is a few gas stations close to harbors along the way, and we just filled up to the top every time we found a station, that way we never really were short of fuel. we burned approximately 900 liter on the way.
places for the night
on the canals there is sufficient free places along the way, without facilities. in most places you will find a marina, if you need that.
rhein: anchering was not recommended, and we didn't try it. there were enough harbors though we had problem with most of them with our draft of 1,5 m, because the river had very little water when we were there.
donau: in the upper danube there are enough harbors and marinas, after austria they get more scarce, and after hungary they get rare. we heard of some yachts who lied on the pontoons of the cities in the stream, we prefered to ancher. we never used 2 anchors (for some reason it seems to be normal with one fore- and one aft anchor, or an additional rope to land). some anchorages on the lower danube turned out to be wonderfull highlights of the journey.
we spent some nights on the wall just before or after a lock, that requires the permission of the lock operator.
locks
we came through ca. 80 locks, so when you get to the last ones, you are well warmed up. mostly we delt with friendly and efficient lock keepers. we called them on vhf or on the mobile phone before arrival.
going down is easy enough, but some of the larger locks on thee main-donau-canal do not have floating pollers and horrendious streams on the way up, the vessel will need a crew of min. 2 fit members.
uniforms
we have not seen an official before germany, but there were enough of them. looking back, i guesse 85% of the police we saw through norway, sweden, danmark, germany, austria, slovakia, hungary, serbia, croatia, romania and bulgaria were in germany.
we had no border formalities before serbia, but from there in every country.