“You can’t drink the water,” she said.

“Why not. Krakow’s a modern city?” I said.

“The water isn’t good,” my soon to be sister-in-law said. “There’s a bottle there for drinking.”

“It’s almost empty,” I said staring at the 1.5 liter bottle. That’s about my half-day ration. In Poland, that could last for three days I was told. No one drinks water here.

“Mhm,” I said, while going for my pack. I had brought something for that.

I returned a few minutes later with my new UV purifier. I filled a bottle, then put the thing in and turned it on. An eerie blue light emanated from the bottle.

“What is that?” Anna asked as her friends stared then started giggling.

“It’s a water purifier. I bought it for Thailand and Laos and anywhere else it might be bad. Didn’t think I’d have to use it here, though.”

The light turned off after a minute, but since it’s designed for a smaller bottle, I fired it two more times.

When the last sequence was finished, I filled a small glass and drank it.

“Tastes fine,” I said optimistically. “Now we’ll see.”

Some more giggles, plenty of looks of skepticism, especially from Ewa Debska, Anna’s best friend, who is also in medical school.

“You can fix me if I keel over,” I said to Ewa.

—

Seven months later and having returned to Krakow for the summer, I’m sitting on a small wall along the walkway near the Wisla River reading James Joyce and wondering about that conversation back in December when I first arrived in the country’s finest city.

The water was “dirty” I was told. And now, looking at the beautiful Wisla, which is pronounced “Vees-wa” but called the Vistula on English-language maps, I can see that looks are deceiving. From a distance the river is magnificent and makes the city that much more enticing. Close up, though, there’s plenty of trash and debris in the very murky water. And Krakow is upstream of most of the country’s industry, which uses the Wisla as its dumping ground. The Wisla is to Poland what the Mississippi was to America, but with the condition of New York’s Love Canal. It’s toxic.

A week earlier I had googled “Wisla” and found a report about the capability of Krakow to provide water to its residents and industry. It seemed to say the city was able to provide adequate supplies. The problem, apparently, is the pipes that deliver the water are not reliable and may be contaminated with lead and perhaps worse. As well, the impression of the dirty “Wisla” has carried over to perceptions of drinking water.

I’m a journalist by training and have been looking for some sort of story to write about. I know this trip in general is already an adventure most people won’t get to do, but I’ve wanted to do something even more than just travel. I needed a mission of some sort.

Sitting on that retaining wall I had an idea. In America, some people took rafts down dirty or endangered rivers such as the Colorado to document the state of those rivers and call attention to the need to clean them up. “Huckleberry Finn” was documenting a river and the society around it. Maybe I could do the same.

I pulled out my moleskine pad and wrote some ideas. I needed to do a bit of research. “Can I raft the Wisla to the Baltic (Sea)” … Where should I start? How long will it take? Where can I get supplies? What sort of craft should I take? Do i need more crew or partners? How long is the river? If I want to highlight quality, how will I test it? Has it been done before?

That last question was really important. It’s 2008. Poland is part of the EU, though not a full member yet. Krakow, Warsaw and some of the other major cities are very modern and the people are smart. The goals were adventure for me and to help improve the Wisla. The first part was easy. Any river trip is an adenture. I would have no problem with meeting that one. But the second would be meaningless if someone already had done it.

I flipped shut the notebook and hopped off the wall. I plugged in my earphones and started my iPod. I had to walk back to my apartment and I wanted to take the long way home, through the Jewish quarter called Kazimierz, which required a bridge crossing or two. The cloudy skies threatened rain but only a drop or two could be felt. I would walk slowly and think about this idea.

As I started out, I decided to walk next to the river rather than way up on the upper bank where I had been sitting. I made my way down the steps and walked along looking at the water’s edge and the junk and the residue along the boat bottoms and tried to take in what I was contemplating.

Ahead, I saw the usual restaurant boats. At a certain point I had to choose paths, and took one headed for the stairs to the bridge. But as I walked along it and got some elevation back I noticed a bunch of tripod stands with placards next to the river. There was a boat moored along the shore and it had “Greenpeace” stenciled on the side.

I walked down to the shore and looked at the placards. They were all in Polish, but it was obvious from the images of beauty and toxicity (including one with a guy standing in the river in a chemical suit) that they were highlighting the Wisla’s water quality.

There were three guys sitting on the riverbank. It looked as if the boat was homemade. I squatted next to the one on the far right and asked him in English what they were doing. He didn’t understand, but the man in the middle asked in English weighed by a heavy Polish accent.

“Yes, what are you asking?” he said.

“Are you taking a trip?” I asked again.

“Yes, we are floating the Wisla,” he said.

I smiled.

“Are you showing the water quality,” I asked?

“Yes, we are trying to show it is dirty,” he said.

I laughed aloud and pulled out my notebook, flipped it open to the page I had just written and showed it to him.

I don’t think he understood so I said “I just had the same idea,” and asked him how long he had planned it.

“We started building the boat two weeks ago,” he said. “We’ll be on the river for six weeks.”

He and his crewmates planned to launch early the next day. It appeared there were six of them. The flat-bottomed boat was of plywood construction. It was in two platforms, fitted together with bolt couplings. It had a fairly new outboard aft. Lashed to starboard were life vests, hanging in a row over the “Greenpeace” stencil. On port side, a zodiac was tied to the boat — the life raft and likely also to be used to help pull the craft. The crew quarters were a box-like structure on the forward platform, with bunks inside and a big house window on the starboard side. Perched a bit precariously on the fore was an outhouse, hanging, of course, over the water. There was no real front to the boat. It was basically a raft. Between the wooden beams that held the platforms together, the builders had placed large plastic mailing bubble wrap for added buoyancy. The craft itself was made of buoyant materials. The problem wouldn’t be that it might sink, but that it might come apart if caught in waves of any kind.

“Is there any whitewater?” I asked Martin, the man whose name I had learned.

“No. Unless a ship passes us. There are, how do you call them, where water needs to be put to raise and lower the boat?”

“Locks.” I said, gesturing with both hands palm-down to show water levels raising to even.

“Yes, locks. Today there is no water in them. We are hoping when we arrive tomorrow there will be water in them so we can pass.”

Martin eyes looked busy even though he and his mates were simply sitting and smoking on the shore. I’m sure he was going through numerous checklists and double-checking his craft for problems.

“Good luck to you,” I said.

We shook hands and I stood then walked back a few feet and fetched my camera from my bag. I took a few photos, then contemplated getting Martin’s details and writing a story, but it seemed now no longer to be my story or even my idea. It was Martin and his friends’ story.

It would be their mission to have the great adventure and to maybe save the Wisla. And it was fitting. It’s their river.

(Ed: Click here for photos of the boat)