The packing gland leak appears to be under control. But I sure miss the feature I had on the old Renault engine where it sucked out the engine bilge water at the same time as it pumped raw water throught the cooling circuit.

Some Dutch moron must have figured out the engine control that I am stuck with. It is extremely difficult to adjust. And I have to do this in the cramped quarter berth quarters, in the 80 degree heat. I’ll get back at it in the cooler early morning. The second challenge is trying to figure out what is blocking the fuel. The engine started on a split second but then died. This engine does not need to be bled for air blockage. But since it did not work I opened the different connectiuons to the injectors any way. They were getting fuel. Tomorrow I’ll take the injectors out and try see if they spray outside of the block. I had drained the sediments from the Racor filter, turned the tank valve on.

I have invited a number of the men and women who have generously assisted me for a go away drink at the terrace of the hotel here at 5.m. tomorrow.

At mid morning I had to come into town to collect the engine controls package from Holland. I did some provisioning for the trip and then had a beer and a Greek salad on the terrace. Then I realized, sitting there, how much I like this country and that I am leaving Zimnicea with some sadness. It was getting warm but quite pleasant in the shade of the Golden Brau beer parasols. Looking over the planter boxed filled with pansies and orange and red flowers I do not know the names of, vines of morning glories, gorgeous women and girls passing by. The table next to me were three men who apparently have a profession, politicians, maffiosi?, that allows them to sit and chat during the working hours, pack of Marlborro’s and their BMW key rings on the table.

I have always wanted to see the engine rooms of these monstrous push boats. Below is what I saw this afternoon.  This one had two 1700 each horsepower Catterpillars that were installed by van Stigt in Groningen. Note the way that some of the motorized barges are pushed back asswards. I assume that this is done to add steering power. Can you imagine standing in the wheel house facing the stern?

After 8 months on the hard “Fleetwood” is floating in the Danube again. My only preoccupation is with the stuffing box. It is leaking a lot more than normal. It could be that the dried out packing needs to expand in the water. I have tightened the nut on the stuffing box as far as I could. Anyway I’ll be sleeping on the boat tonight to keep an eye on it. I have another opportunity to change the packing tomorrow morning, because I’ll be lifted again to be put in a better mooring. Right now I am moored to a floating crane. There is a dredge on the river side of it and it will pull out tomorrow. Then the floating crane will lift me over steel wire rope mooring cables to put me in a better spot. The engine controls arrived today and I will go and fetch the package in the morning.

I am thinking of having a little go away party on the floating crane on Saturday for all the wonderful people that have assisted me here and then go across to Swishtov to go to mass on Sunday and then get on the road to the Black Sea.

Tuesday the second sail boat passed by going down stream. It was a small 24/26 foot German boat.  Last night I met three more bicycle Danube tourists, here at the  hotel. Leen Edelman from the outskirts of Nijmwegen, his lady friend Sabine from the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen and her daughter Anne Kathrin Will from Berlin. They are also on their way to the Black Sea port of Constanza. Delightful threesome. Anne Kathrin is a working lady, a professor in Philosophy and has just 4 weeks vacation. So, they had taken the train to Budapest and started their bicycle trek from there and will take the train back from Constanza. I mentioned that I was reading a book from the German author Herman Hesse, that was suggested by a Dutch friend when I shared with her my twin siblings conflict, I was groping for the title and the philosophy professor knew right away that it had to be “Narziss und Goldmund“. But I am three quarters through the book and have not quite made the connection. Goldmund is a happy go lucky who lives from one day to the next, without a plan, there I see a connection but not with the part where Goldmund sleeps with a trillion virgins and married women. But my twin is not anywhere Narziss. So, anyone has another suggestion?

“Fleetwood” was shifted on her perch in the late afternoon, yesterday. So, that I can bottom paint the parts that had been covered by the stanchions. There were two spots that needed an epoxy patch. But this morning I discovered that the epoxy did not cure properly. I waited till the afternoon, hoping that the warmer weather would make it hard. Not so. So, I had to remove it and apply another batch. I took the mixing cup with me to town and just checked it and this time it did get good and hard. It is 7.30 p.m. I will go back to the boat and sand the patches and put a coat of bottom paint on it. This way I should be able to meet my dead line to be put in to the Danube tomorrow. But then I will have to wait for the new engine controls.

I dug into my bag and have a picture I took the Sunday before when I came back from Bulgaria and happened to come on this Lark (Leeuwerik) singing for me. My sister and Herman live on the Leeuwerikstraat.

The promised hoist, yesterday, has not yet been met. But later today…

It rained 12 hours steady on Sunday from 4 till 4 p.m., then I still managed to get a second coat of bottom paint on the areas that will be covered by the stanchion when the boat is shifted. I worked all day on the drive shaft to engine alignment. But in the end I got real lucky. I was all resigned to having to lift the engine up from the four bases and re drill the holes. But when I had all the 12 nuts taken off their bolts and used a lever to lift the engine from the front and then let it back down it settled in a perfect alignment. Totally in the opposite direction of where I had expected to have to drill the new holes. Baffled but satisfied. Yesterday I installed the flex coupling. This is going to make the ride a whole lot smoother.

I figure that I’ll be back in the river by the weekend and then I need to wait for the engine controls to arrive from Holland. Probably towards Monday.

The 4th of July almost passed as just another day but one of the guards, when I came “to work”, yelled “happy Patru (4) July Americano!”.

Since I left in 2005 I had the “fourth” that year in Papeete, Tahiti. 2006 in Tawi-Tawi, the most southern Island in the Philippines where I had made an illegal (because I had no visa) stop to get a supply of $1 a fifth rum before my next stops in Moslem Malaysia and Indonesia. 2007 I was back in Tacoma, visiting by air from Virginia, 2009 I was working on the boat in Green Cove Springs, Florida. 2010 in Holland. Who knows where I will be the next couple of years. I do miss the tradition in Tacoma, the activities on the bay front, the fireworks, often watched from the boat at anchor in the bay.

Friday:

It started raining early in the morning and continued through most of the day. The flexible coupling arrived yesterday and I was able to pick it up this afternoon. But I have no clue as to how it atttaches to the shaft. I have sent messages to the supplier, no luck yet. The other item in the package was a replacement part for the gear shift. It had broken when I tried to take it apart for the cockpit painting job. Combination of two dissimilar metals in saltwater conditions. They sent the wrong part. So, I may have to work with ropes and pulleys till this is resolved.

It takes 11 hours by train to travel the about 5 hour car drive from Zimnicea to Calafat. So, I have abondened that plan.

Housing in Romania: You have seen some of my pictures of the typical 4 to 5 story apartment blocks. In Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, etc. These were all built prior to 1989 under the communist rule. The regime moved people from the farms and individual private homes into these identical ugly apartment blocks, to have better control over them and since they provided the housing they figured they’d be happy to work for the state for peanuts.  When the communist regimes in Romania and neighboring countries crumbled in 1989 the occupants were given the opportunity to purchase their units. Cheap. Camelia tells me that she paid for their flat with 5 monthly pay checks.  But there does not seem to be any system to provide any kind of service to the common areas of the structures. This might already have been the case in the pre 1989 period. Every owner is on their own for their units. You call your own plumber, electrician. There is no one else who cares about the roof, the stairs, the lighting, the cleaning, maintenance, painting. In the case of my friend’s Camelia’s apartment you enter the building through a beaten up steel door, step over the pigeon poop and since there is no light on the stairs you are spared some of the distractions. Thank God, the Graffiti craze has not touched the youth here yet. Because there are plenty of abandoned, parts of or entire, apartment blocks, rust belt factories, etc. Many of these blocks were built here prior to 1982 and after the big 1977 earthquake, that destroyed many of these, then, poorly built structures.

But once you are inside the individual flats it is a different world. The heating is a large ceramic tiled wood stove that also is used for cooking when the heat is on. Everyone cooks on propane gas bottles. But there is city gas coming here soon. A friend of hers moved away but kept her apartment in town. The roof leaked and the entire interior is ruined. There is no one for redress of her problems. In some more urban centers, like Bucarest, the individual owners have formed owner associations for the individual apartment blocks.

Saturday: I put the first coat of anti-fouling paint on the bottom. Then I spent the rest of the day trying to fit the new flex coupling. With the new cutlass bearing the shaft does not give a millimeter, like it did in the worn bearing, and it does not line up very well with the engine coupling. Most likely the cause of the drive shaft coming loose last October. So, I’ll have my work cut out to try and re-align the engine. The problem with the wrong part for the engine controls in under control, but will probably delay my departure till the  week of the 10th. The company in Holland is sending me an entire new control system at their cost but still over $ 300. This is the third VETUS system in the 30 years of her life. I replaced the first one in Durban for similar reasons, dissimilar metals. This time it is just a small tube of cast aluminum that attaches to the stainless steel shift handle….