Lake Fortuna

Lake Fortuna, marked on the ARBDD route map as "L. Furtuna", is a lake in the Danube Delta in Maliuc commune, north of Maliuc village and the Sulina Branch, between the branch and the Șontea channel. It stretches about 4 km from west to east and belongs to the Șontea-Fortuna lake complex, one of the hydrographic units where the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve Authority (ARBDD) is working to restore water circulation. Like many lakes in the delta, Fortuna is gradually filling with sediment. According to ARBDD, the sediment comes from the Dunărea Veche (Old Danube) through the Crânjală canal, and 71.2 ha of the lake are silted up. ARBDD carried out, with Romanian Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) funds and an implementation period from 2022 to 2026, the project "Dredging the lakes of the Danube Delta to reduce eutrophication and maintain biological diversity", which aimed to return this area to the biological cycle, together with 33.6 ha of Lake Uzlina. The Șontea-Fortuna complex was also included in an earlier ARBDD project to improve hydrological conditions, alongside Matița-Merhei and Somova-Parcheș. The lake has no land access. The Tulcea, Gorgova, Mila 23, Crișan variant of ARBDD tourist route 1 heads north from the Sulina Branch towards the Olguța Canal and passes east of the lake. Maliuc village, on the Sulina Branch, is served by passenger ships from Tulcea; it hosts the Danube Shad Festival (Serbările Scrumbiei), whose 2023 edition took place in May. Any trip within the reserve requires the ARBDD access permit. In low water the lake can be hard to cross by boat. The lake lies within the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, recognised as a UNESCO biosphere reserve (1990), a Ramsar wetland (1991) and a World Heritage Site (1991), and the territory of Maliuc commune is included in the Natura 2000 sites ROSCI0065 Danube Delta and ROSPA0031 Danube Delta and Razim-Sinoie Complex. Did you know that, according to the head of the Delta's fishermen's federation, Lake Fortuna was crossed by tourist water buses (hidrobuze) 30 years ago? In August 2026 the president of the Federation of Fish Producer Organisations of the Danube Delta told Agerpres that the lake, once very deep, now has so little water that "horses graze there".