The plan to travel the whole length of the Danube had been alive in us for a few years before we decided to hire a boat in Holland and try out that mode of transport to see whether it was really something for us. So we spent a week on board 'Desi', a sweet little 7m typical Dutch steel motorboat. The slow pace along the canals required a radical adjustment to our everyday life style where we get from A to B in a car or even airplane, but it rewarded us with a new relationship to time and the world around us.
A luxurious sense of tranquillity... abruptly broken by experiences like the 'Bridge of Destiny' where our little Desi with her 20 horsepower motor was inexorably drawn towards the awaiting jaws of the bridge, averted at the last moment... beginners' problems! Yes! This was indeed something for us!
So the search for our own boat began. We had learnt from Desi something of what we would require for the more demanding 6 month (initially) trip which we were planning. Somewhat more power, adequate standing height, an engine room that could be insulated for noise, an outside steering stand, etc.
The search took a couple of years and extended to several countries. Our limited budget meant we even looked at giveaway boats such as 'Quo Vadis' which we found in France. She had pretty lines, but was a real mess and would have required several years of labour and ultimately a lot of money as well to bring her up to scratch.
Finally, in November 2018, we read an ad that sounded like, maybe... finally... we had found our boat. A dutch steel boat, built in 1984, 9 1/2 meters long with a diesel engine of 110 horsepower, needing work. We made the long trip up to the north of Germany and found 'en noe..' waiting for us, waiting to be rescued from her early retirement, waiting to be loved.
'en noe..'?? What did that mean? Apparently, her name 'en noe..' in a Dutch dialect means something like 'and now...' or perhaps 'what's next?'. We answered her question and renamed her 'Sulina', after the last port on the Danube in Rumania and the goal of our journey.