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The very idea of a raft came to Daniel during a vacation in Thailand – a pontoon bridge was built next to the hotel, where he had fun.
He assembled the raft with his own hands.
Although, it is probably more correct to say that the man, taking with him the people closest to him, realized an old dream that he carried in his head since childhood. Even more so when the prevailing pandemic adjusted travel plans, the family decided to travel to Lithuania:
“I remembered that once I had such a dream when I was a child, when I saw foresters transporting logs, cutting down the forest, throwing logs into the water, there were also cabins. Like all quarantines around, travel is very tense, I suggested to the family that we left the Nemunas would make a raft. This is how it became a project of this type. The family agreed, everyone was very impressed and supported me, “said the interlocutor.
PHOTO GALLERY. Moments of rafting
Preparation for the trip took just over a month, during which time Daniel built the raft with his own hands. This required 12 barrels of oil and wood, which was not so easy to obtain at the time:
“I made the raft myself, looked on Google, some analogs on Youtube, then bought 12 Dollars of 200 liters of fat, wood, and in a month and a half, I built after work.
I had to get wood, and there was that wood crisis, I was a little worried that I couldn’t build it, but I had to connect with acquaintances, so I didn’t get it that way anyway, ”D. Djačkov recalls with a smile.
The man initially built a frame out of twenty-foot-long boards, then put dollars and mounted patio boards on top of the deck, which he simply bought from a hardware store. Daniel estimated that the entire raft and its production cost about a thousand euros:
“Then I built a house, a tent, a gazebo and a wheelhouse on the platform. We collected a gasoline generator, a small gas mattress and inflatable mattresses inside. It was all quite comfortable. “
The raft traveled 100 kilometers
The journey began in Kaunas; In order to transport the raft there, it was necessary to rent a truck and build the upper part of the raft.
“Then when I built everything, I rebuilt everything, I left only the platform and then we ordered a truck, it loaded everything and took it to Kaunas, where there is a drop station for small boats. I put it down safely, I put the house back together and the family came, “he said.
Five were installed in the 18-square-meter raft: Daniel, his wife Gintarė, the 14-year-old daughter Leah, seven Luke and four Leticia. The plan was to cover the distance from Kaunas to Rusnė, but the journey had to be completed in Jurbarkas, after traveling 100 kilometers along the river:
“We sailed from Kaunas, we planned to swim to Rusnė, but we managed only to Jurbarkas. On the way we met the raft” Nemo “, Renatas Žyla said that the Nemunas is very wide beyond Jurbarkas, the summer is quite dry, the water “It is exhausted and the current slows down even more. He said that since we don’t have a motor, sail or normal paddle, we only sail with the current carried, he said we would not get it, we would get stuck and we would practically not move”.
The family had reserved 8 days for the trip and they reached Jurbarkas, in the middle of the entire trip, in five days; it later became clear that Rusnė would not be contacted for the remaining three.
“We were already tired, because the raft was only 18 squares, five of them were tired, the heat was exhausting, the children were already beginning to squirm, so we decided that it was enough to get to Jurbarkas,” smiles D. Djačkov. .
Swimming carried by the current
The man says he did not have a plan for the distance he would cover in one day; while navigating the currents, he managed to cover about 20 kilometers per day.
“We did not have a plan because we had not found it, we had no experience. We simply sailed downstream, the current was about 3 kilometers per hour, we managed to cover about 20 kilometers a day. When we saw that we were already tired or we found another place beautiful at night, we docked, we had dinner there, we fished and went to sleep ”, said the interlocutor about the bathroom.
Because the weather was good during the trip, the family bathed, chatted, prepared lunch on the raft, and in the evening moored in a town or village with a shop: the children ran to buy ice cream or other delicacies.
When asked if there was any idea of interrupting the trip, Daniel just smiled; everything went according to plan, so the following ideas did not arrive:
“It was as expected, it was a bit difficult with the direction, because we turned a lot, the wind had a great impact, although it was not strong. The whole house, the tent, works like a sail and that even when the current goes, that light breeze carries us to the shore, so we had to keep our feet away from the shore. It was a lot of fun when we turned around (laughs). I was sorry we didn’t lift any more serious electric motors or paddles, but it is all accomplished with practice. “
The adventures have accompanied him from the first night
Of course, the trip was not without its adventures: they began the first night of the trip, when they moored on the shore for the night in the middle of the river. Because at night we open the locks of the Kaunas Hydroelectric Power Plant and the water level in the river rises:
“The first night we sailed from Kaunas to Zapyškis, it was very beautiful there, the beach with my wife and I pushed the raft towards the shore as much as possible, but there was no way to tie it up, tie it up, I did not. ‘ Take a stump or stake. Hoping everything would work out, we went out at night and went to bed.
My wife wakes me up the first night and says, “Dani, I think we’re sailing.” I said it can’t be, I’m going to go out, actually, a raft in the middle of the river, Zapyškis hasn’t been seen in a hundred years. I imagine we sailed about five kilometers from Zapyškis during that time. I tried to drop anchor, but the current was too strong, it stopped momentarily and I had to stand at the helm. “
While the family slept peacefully, Daniel spent the whole night at the wheel, but the weather was favorable, so the swimming was fun. During the first day and night I managed to swim quite a bit.
Surprises also accompanied the second night, but this time it was the opposite of the first: the river was so bad that it took six people to get the raft back into the water. Fortunately, Nemo’s team co-sponsored that night as well.
There was also a case where the raft ran aground: since there was no one left to help, I had to scratch myself.
“It just came to our attention then. But the Nemunas was very bad, we caught the current and took us to the shallows,” the man said of the adventures.
Such an adventure will not happen again in the near future.
Five days at five on a raft and many adventures, such was the family trip in the Nemunas. However, such an adventure will not be repeated in the near future, says D. Djačkov:
“The first day we were so impressed that we really planned to travel next year, but when we were already in Jurbarkas, we discussed that this would not be the second time, we would not repeat the first. No matter how much the raft improves, the mind will compare to last year.
And how did the children enjoy such an adventure? Djačkov says the first few days were great, but after a while I heard that the children missed their grandmother or television.
“The raft is small and we row, some currents, we try to maneuver, they begin to mix and shout, disciplining harder because there is a stressful situation and the boys do not understand it. The tensions were a little low and they were probably scared, ”he thinks.
And the weather might not be so good. I imagine that if there was a real Lithuanian summer with rain and wind, I doubt we would have sailed successfully ”.
Now Djačkov’s handmade raft has already been sold: the person who bought it uses the raft as a bridge in a private pond.
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