Day 45: What a difference a day makes

Bralai to Isaccea (68km)

Checking out of the hotel, I was accused of having four beers the night before. Initially, I was adamant that I didn’t have them, but as the receptionist kept asking, I began to doubt myself. Perhaps in my zombiefied state, I had ordered, consumed and forgotten about four beers. No, I definitely didn’t, I insisted and was eventually allowed to leave. I returned to kayak to the wonderful and novel feeling of nothing being stolen overnight, a good sign for the day ahead I told myself. The weather was also dramatically improved, still a bit windy but definitely an improvement from yesterday.

The river proceeded almost directly north from Braila to the slightly larger town of Galati. I’m not sure what distance it was because the marker signs seemed to disappear, but I do know that I wasn’t travelling very fast. This was mainly due to a wrist injury that I picked up yesterday. The pain varied from mildly annoying to debilitating for the entire morning. I discovered that if I slightly altered my paddling style, I could reduce the pain to almost nothing. This new technique was more tiring, so I altered between the two all the way to Galati. Galati, like every Romanian town so far, appeared to be horrible. For miles, the banks were lined with cranes, tankers and without exception, litter.

I stopped for lunch just after Galati and things instantly improved. The pictures below are from my lunch stop; it has become common for the banks to be made up of a soft mud that engulfs anything that steps on it. My wrist injury dispersed for the rest of day and paddling became much more pleasant. Shortly after Galati, the left side of the river very briefly becomes Moldova and then slightly less briefly become Ukraine. I had just entered the Ukrainian section when I paddled round a corner to find a Romanian police boat sitting there. The boat called me over and asked to see my passport. Both policemen were very friendly, one speaking good English and offered me food and drinks. They even allowed me to charge my phone while we waited for the go ahead from their commander. After about half an hour, the commander responded, initially it didn’t seem like good news. The policeman that spoke English began to explain that I should’ve checked in with the police as soon as I entered Romania. He was just about to explain what I needed to do next when the commander spoke again, giving me the all clear to carry on. Not only was I now allowed to carry on, but the police would be waiting for me in the next town to take me to a hotel. I thanked the policemen and was on my way.

Three countries, one picture.

My target was Isaccea, a small town that most crucially had a hotel. I was about 5km from the town when I was again called over by a police boat. They told me to carry on and I would be met by their colleagues in the town (well that’s at least what their hand gestures seemed to suggest). It was starting to get dark when I finally reached Isaccea and I began scouring the bank for the police. It was probably due to the disappearing light, but Isaccea gave me an uneasy sense that I haven’t gotten from a place anywhere on the river so far. Thankfully, as promised, three policemen were there waiting for me. Again, the police were extremely friendly. They helped me drag the kayak out the river and carried it into the police station where it would be locked away for the night. They then drove me into town, dropping me off at the hotel. They even arranged for the owner of the hotel to cook dinner for me, which was very useful as the owner spoke absolutely no English. I wasn’t confident that dinner was definitely coming but after a short wait, I received a knock on the door telling me that it was ready. A much better day on the river, I will enter the Danube Delta tomorrow and, all being well, I will reach the sea in two days!