Oh Happy Day! Suddenly around 8:00 this morning the crew started to cast of the mooring lines and we were suddenly sailing up the Danube. Apparently the captain had some inside information from a friend of a relative that the locks were going to open at 9:30. As a result of that info he took a chance and headed up-river. The chance was because there are no mooring spots on this side of the lock that had the trouble, so, we would be anchoring, which meant that we could not get off the ship if we wanted to.
After four hours steaming along, we anchored. The captain reported that we are no 11 in the queue to get into the lock. However, another fly in the ointment is that there is an EU meeting in Bratislava today, so all river traffic in a 50 mile radius is shut down today from noon until 5:00 tonight. That includes the lock that we are sitting looking at as I write this. No wonder Britain quit the EU with bureaucratic nonsense like that going on. Does New York shut down every thing for a 50 mile radius when the leaders of the WORLD come, not just the EU leaders? Of course not.
Now to more sensible matters. Everybody that I have spoken to are in high spirits and rather enjoying the excitement, especially when on deck with the sun and breeze wafting over them. The captain and cruise director have handled this affair with professionalism, communication and humour.
Fellette has a bit of a cough so is really quite happy to have a quiet day and Moe is delighted for the same reason. Doug, he is super happy because he can get a bit of catchup on emails and other stuff that needs to be done.
I personally enjoy the uncertainty and try to determine the course of events that will take place after we get really underway as we have a few hundred kilometres of river to catchup to get back on schedule so we may have another day of "Full Speed Ahead". There is no doubt that we will miss some towns that were on the original schedule.
We were given the green light to proceed and soon things were happening and the rush is on to get us back on schedule.
We reached the faulty lock and stayed there for several hours as the EU big shots had their Pow Wow and tea!
The first boat through the lock running as fast as it can in the other direction to Vienna.
Everybody wanted to be on deck for the first lock. After 68 of them nobody was on deck!
A pretty clean ship it was.
On deck to watch the ship sail through Bratislava.
We crossed that bridge two days earlier.
The fairy-tale castle.
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