Day 29: Thursday 10th September
Four weeks in!
A windy night with two thunderstorms that woke me though Jill only heard a little rain on the roof. The morning is slightly better but the sky is not clear and some wind persists. So it’s moving-on day again but not down the coast to Sochi – the distance is too far, the roads not good and the destination almost certainly not worth it. So it’s back along the coast to Kavkaz to check out the ferry situation there. Does it exist or not? I had previously looked on Google Earth and had not seen any ferries or ferry port on either side of the straits. But I had come across a photo of the traffic queuing for the ferry. Only one way to pin it down.
First I empty the cassette in the squat toilets. Then we get all packed up and pull over adjacent to the washbasins. I wait my turn, hosepipe in hand, and someone soon realises what I want to do – a chap who has spent about ten minutes scrubbing away obsessively at a plastic bottle. He moves along so that I can get to the nearest tap. Then it’s going in at a fair rate. There are a couple of power points too, being monopolised by teenagers charging their phones and MP3 players.
As we pull out of the site the lads on the gate take the opportunity to practise their English again – ‘you like?’, ‘goodbye’, ‘good journey’. We laugh, thank them in Russian and wave goodbye.
She’s a bit heavy now with a full tank of fresh and three-quarters full of grey water so she waddles a bit as we pull out. We find a spot to dump about an hour later – that’s better!
There’s a pull-in with a group of shops where we pick up some milk – it was described as ‘fresh’ by the proprietor but turns out to be sterilised. What she meant, we think, is that it was still in date. A few doors along there’s another shop and we manage to get some real fresh milk – though as everywhere in these parts it is sold in a plastic bag that presumes you will cut a corner off and pour it into a jug. We decant ours into a water bottle.
We reach Kavkaz at about 4.30pm, first stab is down the wrong approach road and we are on the far side. A friendly local tells us to backtrack and turn off. In doing so we note a bit of beach and a dirt car park. When we get to the ferry terminal more helpful locals point us to the terminal building. There’s a queue of vehicles waiting and people in the terminal. Lots of information notices but none in English … we observe the process and then join a queue. The counter clerk does not speak English and so we are stuck for a minute or so after trying to explain we want tickets for tomorrow. A bystander says you can only buy tickets on the day, not in advance, so we need to come back on the day of sailing with all the documents and cash. A further enquiry of a member of a Russian Hare Krishna (!) group confirms we are getting the right idea. Then another Russian leads me to his English-speaking daughter sitting in a car outside. She confirms they sell OSAGA insurance here as she’s seen the sign.
We then observe what happens outside … buy ferry ticket, do emigration, get van and queue for customs …
We drive back out of the port to the beach entrance we had seen earlier and pull in. It’s a lovely spot but there are a few other cars in the best pitches. But within half an hour or so they have all moved on and so we are able to take the choice spot – at the back of the beach, sheltered from wind and road by trees and with dining room window facing the sea (which is the Kerch Straits of the Sea of Azov) – perfect! We chuckle at our good fortune: beautiful weather, prime spot, migrating birds overhead, shipping traffic through the straits for interest, calm sea, sandy beach. Fantastic.
One downside is the railway marshalling yard behind us that produces an occasional train rumble and Thomas the Tank Engine whistle, oh, and the rubbish lying around. People here just have no concept of keeping the environment clean and tidy so I spend half an hour going round our little pitch picking up all the rubbish and then putting it with a bigger pile under some trees. Perhaps the municipality occasionally clears it? Anyway, now it’s looking even nicer and we can relax for our usual evening, plus a stroll down the deserted beach that stretches for miles into the distance. Scrabble, cards, beer, a look at the fabulously clear night sky and then for bed – lulled to sleep by the gentle lapping of the waves against the shore … until 3.30am when Thomas wakes us with a cheery whistle!
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