The boat my father uses now is a HonWave inflatable dinghy, 3.5 m long. Since our first Danube days, many boats came and went at our Km 727 camp. Of them all, I loved best the East German Pouch (Pronounced pou:h, meaning 'feather') of my childhood summers. That was a long two-seater collapsible kayak, light and very river worthy. Alas, after nearly half-a-century of use, it finally gave up the ghost. The wooden framework is still good, but the canvas upper skin is beyond repair. My father had bought it from an East German tourist in the early seventies of the last century. The price he paid then in bulgarian leva was the equivalent of EUR 75 today. The Pouch is still made in Germany, but its price now is EUR 3,700 [https://poucherfaltboot.de/]. Times have changed.
The biggest rowing boat we ever had was a 6.5 m long Danube fishing boat, still made in the small Danube town of Tutrakan [https://lodkostroitel.com/ribarska-lodka-l-6-5s/]. She could take on the whole family plus friends. That good boat perished in a fire at the barn in Hadjiyska where we used to keep her overwinter – another sad loss.
In the end, my father decided that inflatable dinghies made more sense. They were easier to handle and transport. That was good, but the downside of it was that after a couple of summers under the fierce Danube sun, they developed leaks. Hiding them under a protective sheet was supposed to prevent that, so my father began wrapping the latest dinghy up. Still, the bow section developed an irritating tiny leak making the section sag overnight. So, that was the next bit to repair this April after finishing with the Mechanical Donkey.
By mid-May, all leaks of the boat (it turned out more than one) were patched over, and the boat was proclaimed fit for the coming season. The outboard was also serviced and ready for use.
The boat theme leads up to the interesting world of watercraft sailing up and down the Danube. The next story is a brief introduction to that vast theme – in a brief pause from further preparations for the summer.
