{"id":2453,"date":"2019-10-19T06:42:43","date_gmt":"2019-10-19T06:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2453"},"modified":"2019-10-19T13:12:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-19T13:12:18","slug":"05-the-end-of-the-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2453","title":{"rendered":"05. THE END OF THE LINE."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, day seven and the mouth of the Danube is within sight.\u00a0 Well, within a day’s cruising, anyway!\u00a0 But first we have the delta to explore.\u00a0 We were told about all the species of birds which would see – or at least would have seen if we had been here a couple of months ago!\u00a0 With the water level so low (1-2 metres lower than it can be) access is going to be difficult and anyway most of the migratory birds had already done their migratory thing.<\/p>\n

We arrived in time for breakfast in the city of Tulcea with it’s massive blocks of riverside apartments…<\/span><\/p>\n

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… and it’s flying fish…<\/p>\n

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At least we now know what all the hundreds of weekend fishermen are trying to catch!\u00a0 Even if they only end up with these…<\/p>\n

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We transferred to smaller boats for our expedition into the narrow waterways of the delta itself.<\/p>\n

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This delta is a vast semi-triangular tract of soggy ground – some 4152 square kms – the second largest in Europe we are told.\u00a0 It is delimited in the north by the channel which forms the border with Ukraine – the North Arm – and in the south by – yes, you got it, the Southern Arm.\u00a0 Did I mention there’s a third arm, the Middle Arm?\u00a0 Apparently, it receives about 80 million tonnes of silt a year from the river.<\/p>\n

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Our flotilla of little boats (can you have a flotilla of two vessels?) set off down the southern channel passing a lot of rather second-hand looking boats including the one-time private yacht of the infamous Ceau\u015fescus.<\/p>\n

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There were even more third-hand ships variously parked on the banks or just run aground waiting for better times.<\/p>\n

The small side channels are just that.\u00a0 Narrow and mighty shallow in parts.<\/p>\n

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But we did see some white-tailed eagles…<\/p>\n

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… you are going to have to trust me that that’s what it was!\u00a0 There were also a few flights of late-leaving pelicans and lots of cormorants and herons of various shades of grey.\u00a0 Plus a few remote dwellings for commercial (in a minute sort of way) fishermen.<\/p>\n

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Our tour of some of these small waterways this morning had to be abbreviated before we went aground.<\/p>\n

Anyway, back on the ship we headed down the last 50 or 60 kms of river to the mouth of the river.\u00a0 In this section, the Danube does what all good rivers do.\u00a0 It meanders a lot.\u00a0 However, to make access easier the meanders have been cut off by a number of short cut canals (see the map above).<\/p>\n

We were told to make sure that our windows were closed before we get into the waves on the open (Black) Sea.\u00a0 And we are on the third floor!\u00a0 Let’s hope that’s just careful planning!<\/p>\n

Arriving at the Marea Neagra we were presented with an icecream cone each to celebrate.\u00a0 Also, I might suggest, to take our minds off the fact that the Black Sea is just an open expanse of water!\u00a0 Like any other sea really!\u00a0 And, fortunately, flat calm – so we can open our windows again!<\/p>\n

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So, there you go.\u00a0 We made it.\u00a0 1600 kms.\u00a0 Half way!<\/p>\n

More to follow…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, day seven and the mouth of the Danube is within sight.\u00a0 Well, within a day’s cruising, anyway!\u00a0 But first we have the delta to explore.\u00a0 We were told about all the species of birds which would see – or… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danube-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2453"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2474,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453\/revisions\/2474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}