11th august 2007 - river kilometre 608, somovit - southernmost point of the danube

6am, the Föhn wind is blowing. warm wind and clouds as though brushed over glass-smooth water. it doesn’t take much to slip into melancholy.

I take mica, our 2nd captain, a coffee in the wheelhouse and keep him company for a while. we stay silent more than we talk. he is concentrated on the surface of the water in front of him. from time to time, almost as though he is talking to himself, he reveals something. years ago the eu paid €35 million each to bulgaria and romania for the construction of an infrastructure for shipping traffic: the way things stood up-to-date waterway specifications, radio stations and in particular buoys were to be installed. nothing was done and the money: zap-zerap, mica says; meaning – gone. then he tells me about a part of the german black sea fleet that sits at the bottom of the danube at kilometre 858, just below djerdap II. when it was unable to pass through the iron gate on its way back home, because the russians already had control of this area, they sank their own convoy without hesitation, including an 80-metre first aid ship.

an old towboat from the sixties overtakes us in slow-motion. enthusiastic about the classic form and the rich chugging of the diesel engine, mica says those were ships.

flicking through an ancient oberösterreichische nachrichten newspaper I discover herman maier's change of brand and find something that really delights me: an unsolved sudoku.

towards evening, a short moment of sweating for the captain. we're just before lom. while a big storm is coming down and seriously hindering vision it turns out that a red buoy is where a green one should be. a ship in front of us has sailed right into the "trap" and is already stuck. we pull the rudder around hard. when we radio the harbour master in lom and ask whether there are more like this, he tells us succinctly that he owes us no information and in any case, he should be addressed as "captain" but we are looking forward, as while we are sailing towards the bank of cloud in front of us the second storm of the day comes upon us. forks of lightning flash left and right on the horizon and right at the centre, where the sky and water merge, the orangey-red sun sets. not for apocalyptics, but we like it.