UPDATE wre are heading up river to Tulcea
We made a trial run to the Black Sea today, and we ended up turning back inland as the side waves were bashing us too much making the crossing too uncomfortable, slow and on the verge of being a little bit dangerous.
We are still going to try again the sea bit we are starting to look at other options to get back to central Europe and still do the circumnavigation but the other way around.
The problem we face is the prevailing wind and waves are almost always onto the land on this part of the Blacksea. Firstly as we are skirting the coast they will be hitting us on the side of the boat. We have no keel and not anufe ballast so she rolls very much in this condition. secondly our speed was reduced from 8kmh to 5.4km an hour, maybe locul currents as the wind was not that strong, the bottom of the boat recently had a scrub.
We are also in a pickal with checking in and out of the EU. We can only do this in 3 places. Sulina, Tulcea in Romania and Izmail in Ukraine. And our boat is not fast anufe to go up river on the main roots so are scanning all the backwaters to see if we can find a root in and out.
Options below:
Option 1: by sea to Odessa. Will be long, bumpy and unconfortable.
Option 2: put ‘Milda’ on a cargo boat from either Tulcea, Galati or Constanta to the end of the Danube. We may have issues to get to to both Galati and Constanta and may need a tow as the river is too fast at the moment.
Option 3: put ‘Milda’ on a truck from either Tulcea or Galati. We can get to Tulcea through the Delta, but to Galati we would need a tow.
Option 4: move from Sfantu Gheorghe to Sulina inland through the Delta (check-out from a Romania here in Sulina) and then again inland to Izmail in Ukraine where we would check-in in Ukraine allowing us to stop on the way along the coast between Vylkovo and Odessa as @inoart proposes on the map
What you guys think?