Boating on the Dniepr

I only had to wait about 15 minutes in the town of Rzhyshchiv for my friends to show up and the next adventure begin!

First we had to get their boat in the water. This was a challenge in itself since it was sitting on tires about 30 meters from the water. So we picked up the front end while someone slid the trailer in under the boat. then pulled the boat towards the water and used a winch to pick it up and set it in the river.

This was all quiet challenging with my foot not at 100% but we got it done

I got volunteered to sit on the front of the boat since it would be chilly and I had a jacket from motorcycling that would be warm.

We had to pass under a bridge to leave the Marina

Then we were out on the Dnepr and moving!!!

Ahead of us is the Burkinski Bridge Head. While advancing in 1943 the Soviets needed to get across the Dnepr. They decided to try to cross just south of Kiev. It ended disastrously....  People were using anything that would float to get across the river. Not everyone was given guns some just bayonets. I cant really give an exact number on the dead here because sources are all over the place. Some state over 50,000 dead others state over 250,000 Soviet soldiers died, so either way a lot of people died here . To put that in perspective 156,000 Allied Soldiers landed a D-Day resulting in about 4,500 Allied Deaths.... None the less the war in Eastern Europe was at a scale that I cant comprehend.

Unfortunatly we couldn't dock there to go see the memorial so after floating for a while we headed back onto the river.

In the 60's there was a damn built further down stream from here and many villages in the area were flooded. This church remains on a small island. the village it served no longer existing,

It was recently renovated and is simply beautiful now

There were 6 of us on the boat plus a dog. Here are a couple of the children messing around 

Then there was an island of sand, no more a mountain of sand. Of course we had to climb to the top!

The views from above were spectacular!

After that we motored on back to the marina. Off loaded the boat, parked it, thank god in the water, and cleaned up. It was definitely a great time! I didn't know what to expect since I don't have a lot of boating experience. I can definitely see how people can get hooked on it. Its similar to motorcycling there is a certain freedom on the water that I haven't experienced elsewhere. I hope to be able to do it more often!