The idea of the trip arose unexpectedly, when there was less than a week left before getting up for the winter. Our good friend, sailboatsman Igor, came to the place where the boat was based and offered to go to Novaya Kakhovka for a regatta, but I really didn’t want to go there, so I remembered that I had long wanted to go to the estuary) Well, I said - do it :)

Igor suggested a good place to spend the night in the estuary - an old quarry where you can go on the water and poke your nose into the shore, because. depth allows it. We have never been to the estuary, so I approached the planning responsibly: I looked through the sailing directions, chose the best route, because. this estuary has many shoals and it is impossible to go "by eye" there.

We went on a hike together: me and Ksyusha. According to the weather forecast, on the day of departure, there should have been calm, almost calm weather, and the next day, on return, the duika to the left 8 knots.

The first day

We woke up at 6:00, poured water into the tank, ate, prepared the jib and the mainsail.

We left at 9:00, I immediately dived in to check the screw - I took off a couple of algae wound around it. We walked along Koshevoy on a motor at low power - 300W. This allowed me to move 56 km / h, which completely suited me. Today and tomorrow we have routes of 50 km, not very many, you can not rush.

At 11:30 we left Koshevoy to the main channel of the Dnieper and raised the mainsail with a staysail, and then went further downstream. An hour later we turned back to the river. Rvach, which flows into the Dnieper-Bug estuary.

The river is quite narrow, the banks are clearly visible. We saw a lot of herons and pelicans.

The exit to the estuary is very narrow, in the center it is well dug up to 7-8 meters, and at the edges the depths are small.

We got into calm weather, we left the sails, because. the minimum thrust from them was and at the same time we were motorized by 150-200 watts.

In the distance we saw the Adzhigol lighthouse - it is interesting because it does not have solid walls, and the whole structure is a metal truss around the central pillar.

Today our path lay past the lighthouse, because. you have to go to it through the shallows, for the first exit into the estuary, I didn’t want to immediately sit down somewhere :)

The silence was such that you can hear the bearing rustling on the wall line) Occasionally, in the estuary, you could hear a huge fish rushing.

The first impressions when in the estuary are fresh and slightly sea air.

Sunset in the estuary is incredibly beautiful.

By 17 o'clock we approach the entrance to the quarry. Landmark - a large crane, it can be seen from afar. Only there is a nuance - you can’t go straight, because there you are guaranteed to sit with a keel :)

Career approach:

Having entered the quarry, we passed the crane and headed to the left to stick our noses into the shore for an overnight stay

In the quarry, we saw two more sailboats from Nikolaev, but did not approach them, because. wanted to sleep, and they had "Hollywood" there.

We moored at 19:00, tied the bow to a tree, and anchored from the stern.

We ate and fell asleep.

Because I have an electric sailboat, so I keep statistics in an unusual format, but get used to it)

Notes: half of the way down the Dnieper, the speed of the current is 1 - 1.5 km / h, the wind is almost calm. The motor was used at low power, 150-300 watts, almost all day.

Second day

We slept well, in the quarry there is excellent protection from waves and wind. We woke up late - around nine am. Today we are returning to the Dnieper, according to the forecast, 8 knots will blow in the teeth.

I went for a walk along the shore and took a couple of photos

Today's route is similar to yesterday, only the direction is reversed. We left at 10:00 along with two other sailboats that spent the night in the quarry. One of them is the Tallinn quarter-tonner Athena, the second was far away and could not be seen in detail. We put the staysail on about the first half hour of the journey, before the turn after which the sail became unprofitable (levent) and then removed it completely.

These two boats, apparently, did not familiarize themselves with the sailing directions and ran aground not far from the exit. When we were at the point closest to them, we shouted in which direction they should go to the depth. Fortunately, the wind and wave pulled them in the right direction and they soon took off and continued sailing.

After turning towards the Dnieper delta, the wave began to hit us in the nose, the wind was the same, the staysail was removed and we had to increase the power on the engine to 1300-1500 watts. The wave in this area is nasty, greatly slowing down the boat. We moved at a speed of 2-4 km / h for two hours, and then the wind and the wave began to gradually calm down.

The boat went faster and it became possible to reduce the power to save energy. The rest of the way along the estuary and almost all the way up the Dnieper we drove at a power of 700-900 watts.

We were overtaken by several commercial vessels while we entered the Dnieper.

We passed Rvach and Koshevoy without any incidents. Somewhere between Rvach and Koshevoy, Ksyusha dived in to check the screw for algae, but everything was fine, the screw was clean.

Autumn banks of the river Koshevaya.

We landed at 19:00.

Notes: halfway up the Dnieper, current speed 1 - 1.5 km/h, wind - 8 knots left. The motor was used at a power of 700-1500 watts, all day.

We drove to the city, celebrated the campaign)