So About Those Locks – Part 2

July 27, 2023

Lynn here…

Yesterday, we travelled through the Canadian side of the Thousand Islands and it’s rather disconcerting when you’re in 100-300 feet of water and there are rocks sticking up above the surface less than 100 feet away. We were traveling through underwater mountains. As Rod said, when you touch bottom in the Chesapeake, it goes squish.  When you hit in this area, it goes clank!

And still so many cute little homes on the islands. 

We had dinner in Kingston at a Bavarian restaurant, and made it home before it started pouring. We also experimented making Irish Coffee – quite a mess!

 It rained through the night, but the skies began to clear as we headed up the Rideau Canal. One mile into the canal, we met our first challenge – a staircase of four locks.  

This is how it works: The boats move into the first lock, they close the first gates, fill the chamber, open the forward gates, then move into the second lock, etc. We had decent lock experience in the Champlain Canal last summer and recently the Erie and Oswego Canals, but the Canadian locks are different. The US locks are 70 feet wide by 235 long and most often we were the only boat in the lock. You can see the water surge and prepare for it by holding a line from the wall or wrapping a boat line around a cable. 

The Canadian locks are much smaller – only about 30 feet wide by maybe 70 feet long. And they are busy!  With our boat at 32 feet, we are going to be pretty close to the boat in front or behind us. As we entered the first lock, the sailboat let us go first and we soon found out why. The surge of water in front makes it very tough to hold the line and I lost it the first time. Luckily the lock tender was there to throw us a line and pull us back to the wall and there wasn’t a boat next to us or it could have been awful. She coached me on how to handle these turbulent locks and things got much better after that. We found that if Rod takes a midship line through the window  and I hold the stern line, we can control the boat much better. 

The other difference between the US and Canadian locks is that the Canadian locks are manually operated. They still using the same hand crank mechanisms that were in place when the canal was constructed in 1832.  I was very thankful for the coaching I got today and the rescue at Lock 1. The tender couldn’t have been nicer.

Just so you don’t think we’ve had a bad day, the sun came out, we’re tied in a lovely marina in Seeley’s Bay with a hardware store and ice cream shop. Saw some beautiful swans and Guinness found a swan feather. 

Here’s a family – not sure if you can see the babies – cygnets – in the nest

Tomorrow off to Westport – 7 more locks and the weather looks wonderful – high 70’s and sunny. So, 7 locks done today and only 42 more to go before we finish the Rideau.