Black Sea

We made it to the Black Sea! Not via the intended route because, well, because that’s on the border with Ukraine so not the safest place in the world these days. Instead we used a canal and ended up in the second largest city of Romania, Constanta which is also the largest port on the Black Sea. The canal requires a Romanian pilot which was rather ironic in that we felt the boat bump against one of the locks early in the day. 

Apparently the port is 30km long, so it was quite the approach. Lots of cranes (the lifting kind, not the birds), incredibly long jetties, some impressive ships, railroads, and other evidence of an economically active location. 

David and I went upstairs to the sun deck to watch for part of the time but it was quite windy and colder than we were dressed for so we tried downstairs outside (still windy and cold) and eventually came inside. 

At one point we noticed friends across the room looking intently out the windows so we went to see what they were looking at. Jellyfish. Lots of them. Huge. Transparent white, fairly close to the surface. Beautiful, at least from the vantage point of outside the water. A perfect opportunity to try taking pictures.

We docked and had an opportunity for a city tour. Lots of cachers on the same bus (there there three), and lots of discussion of how much of the tour to join before aborting. David and I took the bus to the starting location, then learned where the bus would be parked and what time to be there, and were the first to defect. We found a couple of caches near where we were dropped off, one in a lovely park, one in a less exciting location. Then we noticed a beach and thought about going to touch the Black Sea but there were so many steps down that we deferred that activity until later which turned out to be a fine choice. 

The city felt incredibly familiar. For starters, Romanian uses the Latin alphabet so we could read everything. Beyond that, it’s a Romance language so we could understand a decent amount of what we read. Lots of cars, and not only tiny cars or cars we can’t buy at home. We saw cars from Japan, US, Germany, Sweden, and elsewhere. Drivers stop for pedestrians to cross streets. Some lovely architecture, very few Soviet era monstrosities, but rather buildings with personality and even some Roman ruins. Sure, lots of construction, but also a much cleaner city. Amazing how being in a place that feels so familiar makes it so much more inviting. 

One of the most fun things for me when we’re in a city on a geocaching cruise is finding other cachers while we’re out and about caching. We found one cache with a couple from Washington DC then went opposite directions, though we bumped into them again later. We spotted a small group who we joined to do some adventure labs and a few caches, then split up when they went to do some of the things we’d already done. 

And yes, we did touch the Black Sea, though we didn’t have to return all the way to the beach. We decided that the boat entry near the marina would suffice so we each got some fingers wet. No, David did not get his feet went and certainly not any unauthorized parts of his “not feet.” On our way back we found even more of our caching friends. 

Tonight’s the last night on the boat. Tomorrow we disembark, take the bus to Bucharest and start the next phase of the trip. David and I will be rooming together, and June and Dave will be rooming together both in Bucharest and Istanbul.