I did not quite make it to Belgrade on Monday. I anchored just 10 kms short of the Serbian capital. And it was a good thing that I did not try find a marina late Monday. Because in the end I could not find any reasonable place to tie up to in Belgrade. The cruising guide I use is a couple years old and things change fast here. The one place in the book was in total disrepair and abandoned. There were a few more marinas listed on the East side of the city. But when I tried to enter the inlet the depth sounder dropped fast to a place I did not want to be stuck in the current. So, just like Croatia, I guess I was not meant to see Belgrade and kept going. On reading up once again what Belgrade has to offer, I might not have missed that much. It did not look that inviting from the Danube. Nothing like Novi Sad, Budapest. So, here I am in a very pleasant little town on the Serbian, Romanian border.

This is where I clear out with the Serbian Police and Customs. I am rafted onto the Duty Free barge. It looks like I am a little better protected than I was in Mohacs, in the current. But they wanted 30 Euroes for the moorage. I thought that the 20 Euroes I paid in Novi Sad was exorbitant. I threw a fit. Thirty Euroes is 40 bucks. That is about 80 percent of my daily Social Securiy check. So, in the end I paid twenty dollars. I prefer laying at anchor nut I needed to grocery shop, clear out and send this update. The good news is that I did not lose my data on the external hard drive after all. It works just fine here.

This is where the landscape changes from flat Willow, Cottonwood river bank to rolling hills very similar to Napa Valley. Oak scrub and cattle grazing meadows. This is the start of the most spectacular passage through the “Iron Gate”. This used to be a very treacherous river gorge but it has been tamed with  dams in a few places.

I deleted the reference of the Bald Eagle in the previous post because I started to doubt the accuracy. But now that I was able to get into my pictures it does look like an Eagle. But checking it on Wikipedia I think it might be a White Tailed Eagle.

On Saturday I ended up having breakfast in Mohacs, Hungary, lunch while waiting for the Serbian customs to check the boat and dinner at anchor that evening near Bodovo, Croatia. Saturday was a gorgeous sunny, warm day. At daybreak I rode back into Mohacs to take pictures. Then upriver to the customs station. At first the officers insisted I bring the boat back upstream. But I pleaded that it was just too hard on my engine. Police, health and customs officers and the folding bike then all went for a ride in the patrol boat. Then the next fear I had was that the patrol boat would need to tie up on Fleetwood and with the current that could be a major hazard to the structure. But they found a pontoon next door and then they decided to forgo the boarding after all. My tie up that Friday night onto Bela’s pontoon rubbed the paint off in one spot down to the primer. The wake from the passing barges was just too violent and I should have had larger fenders instead of rubbing on the car tires of the pontoon. Bela was so impressed with my endeavor after spending two hours reading up on the web site. He did not want me to pay for the moorage. Great guy. Mohacs will remain one of my favorite places I ever visited. There was a great farmers market in town. Lots of colorful piles of Paprikas. Bought ripe plums and vegetables. I will add the pictures at the next stop in Belgrade. This internet cafe does not allow USB uploads. How I wished I had my own laptop again…. In Hungary the language was a major obstacle. Here in Serbia and Croatia my chit chat vocabulary I learned from Roman Wydra comes in handy. Roman always made sure I had the pronunciation right. There are still many places that show the 1999 Kosovo war wounds. The landscape has become a bit monotone with fewer towns or farms. There are several nature preserves and forest along this stretch. Willow, Poplar plantations. I could be going down the Columbia River or the Po.  Lots of Cormorants, Herons, Terns and since Budapest I have started to see Egrets. I am now about as far south as the Danube flows before it starts going more East and even North at the end. Latitude 45 North, about the same as Milan, Italy. The nights are fresh but the last two days I have been just in shorts again. It was too late Saturday to make it to customs in Bodovo, clear in and make it to the marina in Vukovar. I found a perfect quiet anchorage. Sunday morning I searched for the custom station and radioed on their frequency but got no reply. Then I tied up on the police dock in the pleasure harbor of Vukovar. And brought my bike out to clear in after I got the directions. This was at 9 a.m. Mass in Vukovar was at 11.  But the police boat officer, after calling the station, insisted I drive the boat back upstream to the station. I shook the Croatia dust off my sandals and took of for Novi Sad. While at the dock there I got a visit from, Belgian, Pierre Verberght, he happened to be a tour guide on a German Cruise Boat that made a stop at Vukovar. Pierre is the Danube guru and is the principal source for the current charts he publishes of the major European rivers.

I am in a funky marina in Novi Sad. I arrived at mid afternoon and the club members invited me to their lunch party. I had a little bit too much of their Schnaps. But the company was delightful. Novi Sad is a beautiful city of a quarter million Serbs. The second largest after Belgrade. Just like Vietnam in 2006 I was warned not to fly my large American ensign. But war wounds do heal. We took out all of their Danube bridges.

The same thoughts trouble my mind now visiting the scene where such atrocities took place as they did when I first drove through Bavaria, near Dachau. Villages with their churches, farm fields with the traditional small chapels and statutes of the Virgin Mary. The same harmony and friendly people here. How could these people have let this happen? Could I be the next Milochovic?

Belgrade is just 80 kms from here and I plan to spend two nights there.

I arrived at Donau KM 1448 at 5.30 p.m. in the Town of Mohacs. Last night I anchored at KM 1580 or roughly 80 kms beyond Budapest. I left Budapest in the early afternoon after having taken some more pictures in the better weather and lighting. I also got a haircut and filled the diesel tank at the marina before take off. The mechanic job on the retorque of the engine bolts cost me Fifty bucks and it did not make any difference after all. Still black smoke. Anyway I know that is not the problem. The anchorage was very peaceful in another gravel pit, like the night prior to Bratislava and near Lobith on the Rhine. Right now I am in full current parked along a pontoon. I hope the traffic is not going to be to intense tonight because the boat gets thrown around violently in the passing ships wake. I had a heck of a time parking into the current. Three tries. And from now on I am going to have to this at the custom stations along the way. Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Roumania, etc.  My Guinness Book of Records entry comes with a price….. Not sure how far I get  tomorrow after checking out with the Hungarians and clearing into Serbia. Belgrade would be attainable for the weekend if it was not for the customs.

This town is just adorable. Very peaceful. The way the streets are layed out and the pastel stuccoed  houses hug together, it reminds me of  a traditional Mexican village. Very quiet and peaceful and harmonious.

The operator of the pontoon, Bela, is also the mayor of the town, fifth term…  Quite a character. Nice facility with showers, barbecue area, deck.

It has stopped raining and the sun came out this morning but there still is a strong cold wind blowing from the North. I will be on my way later this morning. I wished the weather would have been nicer. I took a few more pictures with the brighter lighting, this morning. But now I am at an internet connection where the computer will not read my pictures.

I just have nothing but problems with the laptops and electronic gear. Yesterday I hooked my external drive to a Mac laptop apparently it asked me in Hungarian if I wanted to reformat the files to Mac and not understanding the language I hit the button. I have not been able to access it on a PC, it tells me that the files are empty. So, I might have a repeat of the Indochina lost pictures. All the pictures I have taken till a few days ago were removed from the camera to my external drive……. And I have no e-mail addresses any longer. I hope that there is a way to recover the data.

After Tuesday’s posting I climbed up to the Burg on the Buda side. There is a beautiful view across to Í Pest from the Matthias Church. This church has the colorful roof tiles in the picture on the previous blog. It was originally built in the 13th century but, except for the Gothic spires, the main building was redone at the end of the 19th century. The interior is a mixture of baroque and the middle eastern influence of the Ottoman time. It is one of the least attractive churches I have ever seen. The whole interior is plastered with frescoes. Very distracting. On the way back to the marina I got totally soaked. Wednesday I spent all morning on my laundry. Because the machine had to be restarted continuously and it is a bit of a walk from my berth. The mechanic retorqued my engine bolts and also had to readjust the clearances on the rocker arms and it appears that it might have fixed the black smoke problem. It also seems to run a little quieter. I’ll find out more today. One other good news is that my right eye seems to be on the way to recovery.  Yesterday afternoon I went back to the Pest side and climbed the tall towers of the Stephans Basilica and visited the church. This hold the relic of the hand of Saint Stephan, who also was the first Hungarian king. The largest European synagogue is in the same general part of Pest and is an unusual building and worthwhile to see the interior and the adjoining holocaust museum. But there was just a concert given when I tried to see the interior.

Last night the weather was dryer but cold and there were more people in the streets. One could spend weeks here and never run out of sights to take in. This city ranks very high on my favorite places ever visited. It was long time dream that became a(nother) reality.