We spent two days in Sf. Gheorge, sleeping in the tent in the garden, visiting the beach and visiting – strange to me – an independent film festival being held at the campground. It seems like an odd place to hold a film festival, deep in the swap in a place accessible only by two boats per day. The town is located two kilometers downriver from where the river meets the Black Sea. It is comprised of one main street and one semi-street that follows the quay along the river. There are probably 100 houses in total and the streets simply sand streets. During the stay I notice a total of about 4 cars, which are four-wheel drive vehicles that can probably be used to reach the only other town in that part of the delta, Sultina. Other than that, the village is only accessible by boat. There is one beer-garden-like establishment, a bancomat, a general store and we hear that there is a pizzeria, but although we walked around the entire town, did not see it.
Even if it is a strange place to hold a film festival, it is in any case a nice atmosphere. People have come from all around the country and some even from abroad to camp, enjoy the beach and in the evening watch films on a big screen set up in the campground.
The two days we spend there are on the beach, picnicking, eating fish stew cooked by Aurora. The campground is located between the beach and the garden in which we are staying. There is a lot going on there due to the festival and so whenever we go or come from the beach we stop there to check out what is going on. On this day we stop there to buy a couple of cold ones, make a lunch of salad, cheese, bread and beer and chill out under the covered communal area that has a number of long wooden tables. It is crowded and we find two places across the table from a middle-aged couple. They are clearly foreign and I was 90% sure that they are German. Usually it is easy to tell. I think it would be interesting to talk to them about why they are hear, etc. I have a German-language book in my backpack that I was reading at the beach and as we unpack our things I lay it on the table nonchalantly, as a way to break the ice and start a conversation. There was no comment so then I asked if they are German and they responded affirmatively. We tried to talk with them, offer then to dine with us, etc, but we got only one-word responses “nein”, “ja” and they were almost physically leaning back to get away from us. It was a strange. They soon left and Tatiana said to me “these people are on holiday? If they are so, what are Germans like when they are home?”. 
We then found the campground showers and showered for the first time in days. They were communal camping showers with only luke-warm water, but if felt great to be clean again. At the house of our babuschka Tatiana had been able to wash her hair when our babuschka heated water on the stove and helped her by pouring the water over her, the old fashioned way. I had not showered properly in days.
Since there was a larger number of visitors in the town due to the film festival, there was some confusion on the boat situation back to the mainland. On our last day we rose at 6 in order to be at the quay at 630 for the 700 boat. by the time we arrived half the campers were already there and it was quite clear that we could not get on the boat, which was limited to 150 persons. We hear that normally the crew would overload the boat, but today someone from the maritime control entity was aboard, so that this was not possible. We are told that larger boat will arrive in the afternoon and it will have place for all who remain. That means that we have another day on the beach and in the late afternoon we return to the quay, accompanied by Costi.
The boat is indeed much larger and we easily have place for the bikes. After all the sand, sea, and wind of the last few days we are tired. A quick exploration of the boat turns up lifeboats on the top deck and we stretch out in one and slowly cruising down the river we watch dark storm clouds roll in over the Ukraine and watch the lightning show. The storm was off in the distance and no threat to us, though it was cool and we pulled on fleece and jackets for that lovely evening-at-sea feeling and dozed off in the lifeboat. The trip upriver is longer than the one downriver and when we woke we still had 2 hours ahead of us. I went exploring and found in the bow of the boat three German boys, who I had seen the day we arrived, playing great music on their old battered instruments. We moved to the bow, found a spot to lean against the bulkhead, view the delta drift pass and listen to their music. It was a great chill-out, end of a long weekend at the beach atmosphere.
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