A source

July 31st. 7 a.m. We weighed anchor, a little less than 100 km ahead.

We pass the narrowing of the reservoir near the village of Ekaterinovka

A young sea eagle is trying to fish near the shore. While the eagle was in our field of vision, he missed twice, and then flew into the coastal bushes.

We move a little further from the shore and get into such waters

But the shores are very beautiful, and the greenery in the water is not visible from a certain angle.

There are no settlements, only in the middle of the frame some small ruins are wormed their way)

It was hot, windless. They dragged us onto the deck through the porthole of the showers. It is good that the water intake for it is located deep enough so as not to suck in the green slurry from the surface of the water.

Passing by Khvalynsk, we meet the only fishermen on the entire reservoir.

Because this is the reality around... And the smell!...)))

Finally, we break out of the green mess with white flakes into the already familiar, "just green" water.

A little later we come closer to the right bank

And we meet seagulls. There is a small current here and the water is cleaner.

Can't get close to seagulls

The shores continue to delight with beautiful views

We pass the town of Alekseevka

Here is the St. John's Convent. It's all on the right side..

And on the left, a little further, in the haze, you can see the towers of the Balakovo nuclear power plant

When approaching Balakovo at 14:50, we contact the lock dispatcher, and they promise to let us through in two hours, along with some kind of pusher. And this is a local schooner, I wonder what ship it was converted from?

Some kind of barge is hanging on our tail, and we try to approach the lock together, but without catching up with us, a kilometer from the approach channel of the lock, the barge anchors. This is not our pusher, we will wait. Drifting within sight of the lock. We contacted the dispatcher by radio: we will have to let two tankers through, and after them we will go. While we are waiting, I phoned the Rechka sailboat club, located right behind the gateway, and agreed on an overnight stay. At 19:00 we finally enter the gateway. We lock with a tug, from which a couple of sailors are watching us with interest. Exit in half an hourm from the lock and moored to the floating gas station on the starboard side, Katya professionally quickly outweighs the fenders from side to side, and I, not very professionally, poured diesel fuel onto the deck. We move away from the gas station and in a minute we moor in the sailboat club, and again Katya skillfully outweighs the fenders, however experience))) We barely squeezed into the box between the berths in reverse. We talked with the security guard, found out where the store was, and ran there - I really want some water from the refrigerator, I have no strength!))

Thanks for reading, to be continued...