London to Auckland

We had planned to leave Port Tomis at 6am to avoid the wind and after a minor mechanical, got going at 630am but the wind was up already. The wind was howling from the north west and the sea was getting rougher all the time so we curved in towards the Bulgarian coast to avoid the worst of it. It was very rough the whole time and we were working hard.

We had left with less than full tanks so had made the decision to call into Igneada on the Turkish side of the border with Bulgaria for fuel and a break. Due to the slow going and heavy weather we limped into Igneada with nothing in the tanks accept the smell of an oily rag.

My research had led me to believe that there was both fuel and customs available in Igneada. For the record, there is neither.

When we rode into the harbor we were summonsed (with much waving of arms) to the coastguard center where a group of coastguard guys and one officer were taking tea in a pavilion. They were all very friendly and we were forced to take tea with them. Then we were escorted to the local petrol station with a 44 gallon drum in a coastguard van and refueled (at great expense) efficiently and quickly and sent on our way before we became a paperwork problem for them.

The weather on the sea had been crap but we worked out that we could cover the remaining 120km to Istanbul in 3 hours. This, however was not the case as our run of bad luck continued and it took us 5 hours to cover the distance and the last two hours were in sloppy 4 meter waveswith strong wind from the north. Our pace was glacial and the sun was going down. This was not fun.

We eventually did make the Bosphorus(or I wouldn’t be talking to you now) just as the sun was going down. Again I ask, “What’s new?”

Positive note: Istanbul is the most beautiful city from the water I have ever seen.No ifs or buts.

We were running out of daylight so headed through the Bosphorus to Karakoy marina for customs clearance and to park for the night. It was pitch black on arrival, customs wasn’t opened and the marina was full of large passenger ferries all charging around at high speed making huge wake. No one wanted to know us. One place we tied up at had killer dogs salivating at the prospect of eating Travis(i am too tough and old).

After being told to bugger off from anywhere we tried and being absolutely exhausted a friendly old man said we could tie up to his boat(Burfoots fifth law:If it seems too good to be true then it probably isn’t true. See the next post for verification of this). He then dragged us to a very seedy place for a beer each and some chips for which he charged the princely sum of 30 Euros. Ripped off again but what can you do? We eventually found a hotel and crashed.

Stats: 12 hours 45 riding in ugly conditions for a total of 430 hard earned kilometers and that, ladies and gents, should impress you.

There are some who say that the Black Sea is always rough. I for one can not argue this point. We had a late start out of Tulcea due to the fuel pump opening time and the need to change dollars to kashushniks at the local money changer to pay for the fuel.

By the time we hit the Black Sea it was ready to hit us, and it did. It was a 1-2 meter brown(not black) slop and the wind was blowing quite strongly from the south east. As a consequence we plodded the 160km from Sulina to Constanta and made shelter at Port Tomis for the night.

New Record: First PWCs to transit the European Waterways from the North Sea to the Black Sea.

Fuel is turning out to be our biggest nightmare. It is so difficult to find it and it’s very expensive. We can use 750L in a day. Here in Turkey it is 2 Euros per liter. That’s 4 NZ dollars. You do the math. Even if we did have the money to pay for it, its difficult to obtain. On day 16 we called in at Giurgiu in Romania and were stuck there for 5.5 hours while our trusty ground crew ferried drums from a service station some km away. And this all in 40 degree heat. Frustrating and painful.

We did achieve some good there in Giurgiu as we met up with Olga Cridland and her husband Frank from P.A.V.E.L, the Romanian children’s cancer organisation. Thanks for your hospitality Olga and Frank. You made our day brighter.

After the refuel we headed down river for a night in Tulcea near the border with Ukraine and just 70km short of the Black Sea. The river riding was good and we covly 600km for the day. We had dramas along the way with both Jed and myself sucking debris into the jets and wasting some 20 minutes, plus a wrong turn which wasted another 10. This resulted in an arrival into Tulcea in the dark. So what’s new?

Today we slept in until 8am and the called the Kozlodui Police to see what was going down. Much to our amazement we were informed that the Seadoos had been found and that we should get our arses and anything attached to them across to Kozlodui by the quickest means possible. This 70km road trip and ferry ride took 4 hours and by the time we reached the Bulgarian side the local police had arranged an escort for us and were in a great hurry. The reason for the hurry became evident when we reached the police station and were ushered into a briefing room for a press conference with Bulgaria’s main TV stations. There, the area police commissioner apologized that this had happened in Bulgaria and I backed up by saying that the Bulgarian police and people that we had dealt with had been thorough, professional and very friendly and they need not be embarrassed because this could happen in any country. And I meant it. They were wonderful and we thank them sincerely!!

Now we were taken to the Seadoos and it was a sad sight. They had been rolled and pulled about 60meters through grass and scrub and were covered in dirt. There was quite a bit of superficial damage.

We had to go back to the station for another few hours of paper work while our ground crew George(Not the future porridge eater George) and some policemen got the skis back in the water. While completing the paperwork, I noticed that very time they had written Auckland they had spelt it Ducklano. Sounds good don’t you think?

With the paper work completed, we drove back to the skis, cleaned them down a bit and started them. It was a relief to find that they ran ok still so we rode them back to Romania for a beer.
Photos of this whole sorry episode will be posted when we get better internet.

In my experience Saturday the 14th is the day you have to really watch out for because this is the day when you deal with all the stuffups from your decisions of the day before. And today was no different.

We rose at six again and looked out the window at the harbor and immediately knew something was wrong. We couldn’t see the skis. We hurried down to the harbor hoping that they were just out of site but when we got there our worst fears were realized. They were gone. We were devastated. I felt like vomiting. At that point I could see our whole ride going up in smoke. We woke the old guys who were as shocked as us and the forced ourselves, still in shock, into action.

The old blokes called the police, Ivan and Travis stayed with them and I started walking down the river bank looking for some evidence. I found nothing and returned 30 min later to find a couple of police there. I the decided that what we needed was a huge media push and to put as much pressure on the police as possible so I sent out an emergency call to Bev Bailey in London who immediately put out a press release. I rang Garry Learmonth from the New Zealand Police and left a message for Jayco’s Gerry Ryan in Melbourne who has contacts in the Victorian Police. My wife Manola alerted Interpol.

Within an hour I had done a sat phone interview with TVNZ and a radio interview with the BBC. More detectives arrived with an interpreter.

We suspected George from the night before and he had been dumb enough to let me photograph him so we showed the photo to the detectives and our interpreter Rosen Popov. In a stroke of luck(ask George for a second opinion on this), Rosen recognized George from the unit next to his and now the hunt was on.

At this point we got a timely call from Richard Shaw at BRP Seadoo in NZ who said he would support us and keep the show on the road and not to worry about the lost machines. This was welcome news and much appreciated.

But now in another side plot the police raised the theme of us being illegally in Bulgaria and we had to agree that vaguely and with some minor reservations, that technically this was correct. We were ‘invited’ down to the Kozlodui Police station to explain. We were each ‘interrogated’ separately at the station which took all morning with the assistance of our official translator, Rumyana Stoyanova. During this time we ere pleased to note that George had been brought in for questioning.

Meanwhile on the other side of the river in Romania, the s__t had hit the fan too and Romanian Police were mobilized and were searching the river for 200kms and searching larger boats on the Danube.

Returning to our illegal immigrant status, we were picked up by the border police and driven at break neck speed to a border post to have our passports stamped. The border police were very friendly and bought us coffee and waters and we did a t-Shirt swap before heading back to the Kozlodui Police station for more paper work. When we got there we noted that George’s two friends had been brought into the holding yard as well and were pacing around nervously. Their fears were well founded because now the Bulgarians were aware of what sort of international publicity our event has and the station was swarming with special forces police in overalls and heavy boots.

The day ended with a ride back to Romania to our hotel there. During the ride we made plans. If the machines were not found we would go back to Ivan’s dealership, find some more machines and start again. We would not give up. A really crappy day ended up on a very positive note for the team.

We finally got out of Belgrade at 5pm last night and were pleased to be going again.

Clearing customs into Romania at Moldova Deche was interesting. It was like going back 50 years in time with the paperwork destroying another tree.

After that we zoomed down river for a bit more before finding a small hotel on the side of the river just as it got dark.

Friday the 13th started like any normal day with a 5.50am wakeup and then a dive into the Danube to pluck some weed from the intakes of the jets from the late arrival the night before. Then we set off down the river in good weather towards the Iron Gate Dam complex at 943km from the Black Sea.

The Iron Gate Dam is a massive structure holding back the Danube between Serbia and Romania with a double lock on both sides. We were informed that we would have to wait 2 hours for some bigger boats to join us and that we would have to wait with the skis in the 35 degree heat. In the end it took 3.5 hours to get through there and we were totally pissed off.

Then we spent another hour at a tavern a few kms down stream while the ground crew refueled us in the oppressive temperatures. The owner of the taverna got the shits because we were using his dock so I told our cameraman Stuart to film him which he did (with the camera turned off) and everything calmed down.

After the refuel we set off down stream again well behind our targeted kms for the day. About half an hour before dark we encountered a huge thunderstorm which whipped up a strong headwind and large waves. We obviously weren’t going to make our target for the day so we started to look for a suitable place to camp at KM 700.

We had just settled on a small island with a sheltered inlet on the Romanian side and had sent Ivan off to the nearest town for food when we heard him returning with another PWC. The new guest turned out to be George from Bulgaria who said that he knew of a safe place on the Bulgarian side with a hotel right next door. It would be illegal to do this but it was a small town and we thought under the circumstances that it was a pretty good proposition. We followed George to the harbor and tied the Seadoos up to a large ship parked in the harbor owned by two old Romanians who promised to look after the skis. Then George led us 80m to a cheap hotel. We had a good feed and a beer and went to bed content and happy that the Seadoos were safe.

We expected to leave early this morning but are still fixing the problems with one of the seadoos.This is totally frustrating but it’s better that we go completely servicable than have other problems down the track where the facilities are not available for servicing. We still hope to leave in time to clear customs out of Serbia and then make the famous Iron Gate dam that blocks the river between Serbia and Romania. Thats at 943km from the Black Sea. Hopefully tomorrrow will see us doing a massive distance and getting close to the black Sea. It’s hot here and forecast to remain so for the next few days.
Regards Jeremy

last night Ivan discovered a major problem with one of the drive shafts and jet pumps so we are stuck here for another day waiting for parts. That’s not such a bad things as Belgrade is a pretty pleasant town and we have great support from everyone from the Radulovic Group at the ‘White yachting Club’. Everyone here in Belgrade has been wonderful to us. We are grateful.We especially appreciate the efforts of Radinka Danilov from Hill & Knowlton who has been like a personal secretary to us…just awesome.

And it is a great opportunity to toughen up the Seadoos and make them as bullet proof as possible. Tomorrow we hope to leave early and make 6-700km towards the Black Sea through Romania. Watch the tracker for some movement from 6am Belgrade time.This will mean adjusting our Istanbul arrival to the 15th.
Regards Jeremy

Two live TV appearances in the studio for Ivan and I, 295 emails to deal with, the blog, photos, dirty washing and maintenance on the machines. Doesn’t feel like a day off. I’m tired. I felt better when I was riding. Tomorrow it’s to Romania and eventually to the Black Sea.

A stunning day of riding.Perfect weather, flat calm river and great scenery. Covered the 310km to Vucovar in Croatia in 4 hours and were met on the river bank there by Ivan’s family for a relaxing lunch. Then it was a max speed run to Belgrade. 170km in 1hr and 50 min. We had a ball. Cable tied the throttle on max and went for it.The machines were sucking fuel at 37 liters per hour. Today really was the ultimate ride and I will never forget it. The welcome in Belgrade was the biggest and best yet. Quite overwhelming with a massive media presence. During the celebrations we all heard that one of the young cancer sufferers supported by our hosts Nurdor had just died and we were reminded again of what it’s really all about.Very sad.