After one and a half years of preparation, Sulina is fit and beautiful and raring to go.
What a long journey it's been already to reach the beginning of our Danube trip. A year and a half ago we found our boat, motored with her against the hefty current of the Rhein, moseyed on down the placid Mosel, Saar and the French canals until reaching Straßburg. The learning curve continued steeply with the restoration work: welding, using a Terco, a vicious toothed device that sits on the drill and strips away old paint and rust down to bare metal, putting on the antifouling after many many precoats, and plenty of other skills.
It was a long wait before we could enter France again in 2020, but then only a short stretch of hard work including opening up the 6 cylinders in the process of 'fixing' (we thought) the engine cooling until June 26th when all was prepared and the start of our trip looked real and not just a dream.
Together with Miriam, we set out a small table with sparkling rosé wine, a bottle of Apice--a bitter aperitif with orange, herbs and rhubarb flavour, fruit juice and snacks. At 9 in the morning? Well, yes, this was France after all and we wanted to give Sulina the best send-off. This fine tradition is called an 'aperitif' and we first learnt about it in our other marina in Straßburg, an informal coming together of friends and neighbours casually announced, and with a style and life of its own.
Sulina was decked out in all of our flags (with the exception of the big red flag, reserved for emergency!) And looked pert and ready. Her motor started well and cooling water gushed out the exhaust in the back. All checks completed and with full tank and jerry cans, Johannes and I motored out of the marina toward the Rhein.
Wait! Where was Miriam?
She was filming Sulina's departure from Straßburg! The real start of our journey happened about 10 minutes later, after we had returned to pick up Miriam, camcorder and tripod, and we all waved goodbye to our friends on shore and set out to their cries of 'Bon voyage! Bon voyage!'
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