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Report - - Coastal Crane - Balchik, Bulgaria - July 2013 | European and International Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Coastal Crane - Balchik, Bulgaria - July 2013

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bhg

In Search of Lost Time
Regular User
This is my first solo crane, and I must say that I was really excited about climbing it :)
I spotted it while walking down the promenade by the sea with my daughter on our arrival day.. Next day after some sunbathing, building sand castles, went to check access points (with little R, who seemed to be a bit confused, asking "Mummy, why are you looking over this fence? What is there? Can I see?"). It looked like an empty building site, with few unfinished hotels, security point etc..
Few days later I finally sorted out a baby sitter for one night, left home at 2am and started walking downhill to finally reach the coast... Small town was asleep, and so peaceful and quiet at this time a night. It seemed to be owned by packs of sad, homeless dogs, they were everywhere, watching me while walking past them. Then I finally reached the crane, checked everything again and I realised that I left my SD card at home... Well, quite unlucky I must say, didn't have enough time to walk back home again, there was no signs of taxi or anything:( Then I saw some guy, sleeping on the bench by one of the restaurants, so went to wake him up and asked for a taxi number.. He seemed a bit suprised ( maybe because I woke him up in the middle of the night haha), but helped me and again after 15 mins I was by the crane, with my SD card this time :)
Knowing my access point already it took me a few seconds to get to the bottom of the structure. As soon as I got there I heard loud barking coming from the side, where the security hut was... Arghhhh I stopped for a bit, but barking was getting louder and louder and certainly dog or dogs where coming closer. So I started climbing the first ladder as quick as I can, thinking that if the security guys sees me now I can always say that I'm trying to escape the dogs hahaha.
After few levels up, dogs seemed to loose interest and after a while I reached the top of the crane..
The night was just great, I sat down, opened my very tasty Bulgarian beer and spent ages watching the sea...and a kissing couple that sat on the beach just below me.. Well I wasn't really watching them for a long like some sort of stalker hahahaha
At some point I saw few lightnings in the horizon.. I must say it scared me a bit, top of the crane is certainly not the best place to be during the storm... But it calmed down after some time.

Some pics here:

Promenade, lighthouse on the top of the mountain and Balchik port

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Hills

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Crane

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It was just before 4am, but still hot and I was covered in dust, so decided to climb down and jump in the water from one of the piers. The left one was always my favourite, water is about 5 metres deep there, and I can take a run on the white blocks there and jump futher into the water.. So I did and it felt just amazing, swimming in the warm sea just after climbing my first solo crane :)

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On my way back home I stopped to take some pics of the Turkish ship. There are also few cranes there, unfortunately loading 24/7.

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Sun was rising already, town was waking up, I sat for a quick coffee with the fishermen, who were just about to sail off. They even asked me if I want to join them, but I decided to call it a night and went back home...

Enjoy!
 

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