This week began and ended in much the same way, with a long and arduous walk.
On the first day we trekked along a busy dual carriageway to our launch spot on the Black Sea coast. Here we spent the afternoon making good miles on the water in thick mist that saw us hugging the shoreline. It was good to finally be paddling at sea, a goal we had worked towards for four months and, despite the cool mist, we were in high spirits. The next morning we made similarly good ground but as we sat for an hour with border police the conditions worsened, the wind picked up quickly and the heavy waves forced an afternoon of walking.
Sadly this became the tale of the week: police and walking. With waves that swamped the boat we had no choice but to stay on land hauling our canoe, rucksacks and food barrels along the beaches. Progress was slow since the canoe and gear could not be carried all at once. We would walk a few hundred meters, set down the canoe and return for the bags, walk them to the canoe and beyond, then set the bags down and return once more.
The police seemed to appear most days, in some form, to have a look at our passports and boat documents since we were wandering around on the Romanian/Bulgarian border. At the border itself they even used a minibus to drive us inland to the border check point, the canoe sticking out the open back door as we rattled over pot holes and bobbed along the dusty farm track. There they left us on the road and watched as we walked off into the distance, heading back to the beach.
A final opportunity to hit the water came on our penultimate day where we had just under three hours of paddling time before waves and unsheltered rock cliffs meant, again, we could not go on. We strapped wheels on our canoe and followed a paved road that looked out across the sea. This road provided 30 kilometers of hilly but quicker walking to Kavarna, our current location.
The main interludes to our painful hauling were stops by the police, a cute stray dog that followed us for several hours and longed to be our full time pet, and meeting an experienced sea kayaker, Galin, who we had contacted earlier by e-mail.
We now find ourselves resting in Galin’s house looking back on a strange week. It was a week with not much canoeing and a painful amount of dragging, carrying and hauling.
What lies ahead is uncertain; we do not want to drag a boat to Istanbul, we want to canoe there but time and the weather are against us. From here we continue to Varna with a close eye on the conditions. With the weather as it is, however, tomorrow it seems we will be hauling once more. We will persevere for at least another few days because every kilometer we canoe along the coast is an achievement.
For more detailed updates you can follow our progress @CanoeingEurope on Twitter and read our regular blogs at www.canoeingthecontinent.com.
This photograph was provided by Canoeing the Continent.
