Sacalin Island

Sacalin Island is a young sand island in the Black Sea, off the mouth of the Sfântu Gheorghe branch, south of Sfântu Gheorghe village, within Sfântu Gheorghe commune, Tulcea County. It is crescent-shaped and made of sand mixed with shells. It began as two islands, Sacalinu Mare and Sacalinu Mic, which merged as sand built up. A shallow lagoon, locally called the “melea” (Meleaua Sfântu Gheorghe), has formed between the island and the shore, and the northern end of the island has joined the delta, so today Sacalin is in fact a peninsula. The island formed from sediment carried by the Sfântu Gheorghe branch and reworked by waves and currents. Researchers Petre Gâștescu and Basarab Driga regard it as the model for how the rows of sandy ridges south of the Sfântu Gheorghe branch were formed, and its joining to the delta had been predicted by Romanian scientists as early as 1977. In 2015 an INCDDD researcher estimated that the southern tip of the peninsula, then about 5 km from the Zătoane area, was moving closer to it and that a new lagoon could appear there within 5 to 10 years. According to ARBDD, the island is the most important breeding, pre-migration, migration and wintering area in this part of the delta, used by about 100 bird species, 14 of which breed here; Sacalin holds the reserve's largest Sandwich tern colony (Thalasseus sandvicensis). Lakes Zătonul Mare and Zătonul Mic, in the same protected area, are breeding sites for the mute swan and feeding grounds for waders. In the lagoon, local guides from Sfântu Gheorghe report great white and Dalmatian pelicans, cormorants, great and little egrets, grey and night herons, spoonbills, mute swans, bitterns and white-tailed eagles, and carp spawn here in April and May. Bird numbers peak during the spring and autumn migrations. The island is part of the Sacalin-Zătoane strictly protected area, which tourists may not enter: entry of people and unauthorised boats into strictly protected areas is an offence under Law 82/1993. Legally, the island can be seen from the left bank of the branch, along the ARBDD themed trail D8 (Natura Trail), which runs from the village along the Danube to the river mouth, and from the water, on ARBDD route 15 (Sfântu Gheorghe, the Turcească channel, up to the entrance of the Sfântu Gheorghe lagoon), without entering the lagoon or landing on the island. Sfântu Gheorghe is reached by passenger ship from Tulcea. Every visit to the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve requires the access permit issued by the reserve administration (ARBDD). It can be bought online on ddbra.ro, by SMS, at SelfPay terminals or, in cash, at the information centres in Sulina, Crișan and Murighiol; children, pupils, students and pensioners receive it free of charge. The Sacalin-Zătoane strictly protected area covers 21,410 ha: 19,340 ha of lakes, channels and ridges in the south of Dranov island and about 2,070 ha of lagoon between Sacalinu Mare, Sacalinu Mic and the shore. It was declared a protected area (IUCN category I) by Law 5/2000 and is shielded by the Dranov island buffer zone. It belongs to the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO and Ramsar since 1991) and to the Natura 2000 sites ROSCI0065 and ROSPA0031, and is managed by ARBDD. Did you know that Sacalin's growth can be followed on maps more than 250 years old? It first appears, as a single core, on a Russian map of 1771; in 1856 Captain Thomas Spratt, working for the European Commission of the Danube, drew two submerged cores no longer than a kilometre; by 1924 the island had reached 10 km, and by 2015 about 19 km.