Danube2

Day2
On our hotel boat we each have a small cabin downstairs and upstairs is a large room dominated by our dining table, which was set up for a welcoming dinner on the evening. this morning I am first up and it is already set For brekkie. Gabriella is taking care of us on the boat, Nellu is the boatman and Florin is our Danube Delta Guide.
Our first day took us eAst into the Delta in a smaller boat which could navigate the places we were going. there are 3 main channels in the delta. The Northern channel is on the border between Romania and Ukraine. the middle channel is a mixture of the old Danube and a man made channel that goes to Selina on the coast. This has been maintained for years as the main navigable channel We took the middle one in the morning and explored many lakes via a series of smaller channels. The bird life is huge in numbers, with the most famous being the White Pelican and there are hundreds of these wheeling around all the time. There is hardly any time when cameras are at rest, especially with this group. We have some serious bird people here and they have cameras to match. you will see some in the pictures. Their Binoculars are equally serious but those only get so big.
I can keep up with the general groups of birds but once we get down to the grey sandpiper vs the common sandpiper I am gone. Our guide is really on top of his birds so that is good for the rest of the group.
some 6 hours later we hooked back up with our hotel boat for lunch and then back into the small boat to go north. By evening we were on the old Danube somewhere south of the the Oak forests. This is where we will go tomorrow.
It is hot, but when the boat is moving it is fine as long as you are under cover, so we are all hovering under the small roof area on the boat. It is amazing to think that in the winter the delta freezes over for 4 months and most channels are unnavigable. There are pictures in the books and it looks so special, but I cannot imagine how they get in there to take the photos.