The Welland Canal and back in Lake Erie!! Almost home...

We left Toronto early, about 7:30am bound for the Welland Canal. I bet when I go back and look I started most posts this way! Lake Ontario had this glistening sheen again were the sunlight bounced off the water, sort of like sheets, as if you could almost see the light. The lake had only a little bounce and a little foggy stuff in the distance so even though it was bright in the distance it felt like fog or clouds but it wasn't. Does that make sense? Probably  not. Suffice to say it was a nice day for a boat ride.

It is only a 30 mile trip south south east from Toronto to the opening of the Welland Canal. Kermit had it plotting in since Oswego. We planned to stay overnight and go through the canal the next morning. All the guidebooks and the advisors warned us that recreational boats are second priority behind freighters, even more so than in other locks because of the relatively narrow canal for huge freighters with only one way to exit to the ocean. We were warned that we might have to wait for a clear moment at any time day or night to be calledinto the canal. One boat we met in Waterford, the guy from Oswego, said one time he was called at 3am. Once you enter the canal you move directly through without the ability to anchor overnight. It is not possible to stop along the way although it is possible and probable, we were warned, that we could be delayed.

So we were prepared to wait to enter then to wait along the way. We were prepared for a long adventure. But this is Good Karma! Prepare for the worst and receive the best!! That is out motto.

Kermit called in to the lock master at Lock 1 about 10am when we were within range to inform him that we were here and would like to lock through. We were shocked to hear that after 2 freighters came out of locks 1 and 2 respectively, we were cleared to enter the lock in an hour or so. This is not at all what we expected or planned. As a matter of fact, we were sort of not ready. But we said, "Thank you Lockmaster". Oh crap. Now what? Our fenders weren't done and most important we did not have a third person on the boat required for moving up through the locks to Lake Erie.

Kermit blowing up our 3rd
big fender

Ouch, that hurts!

I had a client at 10am so I went below. I was no help. Kermit got on the phone to work his magic. The dockmaster at St. Catherine Marina is used to dealing with this situation. He provided the name of a guy. The guy was tied up on another boat so he provided the name of another guy, Bob, who happened to be free. We could pick up Bob at 11:30 at the port side about 500 feet from the entrance to Lock 1 in the "waiting area". We could see the entry lights clearly from this spot.

The waiting area in front of Lock 1

At 11am I came up from below after finishing with a client to find us approaching the waiting area. Bob was waiting on the wall. Who else but Kermit could pull this kind of stuff off? Good Karma!! So for $150, the loan of a life jacket, and a ham sandwich Bob joined us for the day!

Bob showed us how to pay the fee to use the canal. Let me say a word about the fee. All the guidebooks, Skipper Bob and tons of websites we all consult, say the fee is $200 in cash. This is incorrect. They no longer accept cash. The fee must be paid by credit card. If you do not pay online there is a 20% surcharge. So instead of paying $200 in cash, which we had prepared in advance of course, we paid $240 on the credit card. So much for those stupid guidebooks. We should have gone directly to check at the website. But we didn't so we paid a $40 stupid fee. Bob looked at us like we were nuts.

Bob getting us set up to enter lock 1

Pilot boat coming out to meet the freighter

Bob helped us set up properly by placing our boat hook where we could get at it, getting out our gloves, and rearranging our fenders for maximum support.

Pilot boat

See captain on bow and pilot coming out of the
freighter? 

While we were waiting the first freight came out and we got to see a pilot transfer off a freighter onto the pilot boat. Do all pilot boat captains come lanky, bald, and handsome like Matt Hechtkopf? It must be some requirement in the fine print!!

Don't you dare drop the pilot's bag!

Pilot climbs out of the freighter into the pilot boat

Pilot and pilot boat crew who looks a lot like
Matt Hechtkopf

Doesn't Matt (in the middle with Grammy)
look just like the guy carrying the bag
in the Welland Canal if you take away
the beard? Freaky...

The double green lights are the sign to enter the lock

Then it was our turn. We got called when the second freighter was in Lock 1. "Good Karma get in position. You are free to move through the Welland Canal system". So cool!

Lock 1 - they all look like this!

The canal passes through towns
so there are bridges
over the 26 mile expanse.

People wave like we are in a parade

Cars waiting for us to pass -
I am sure they love us for
all these disruptions!!

We have experience with many different kinds of locks. Bollards in the rivers (our favorite), hang on to their permanent weighted lines in the Erie Canal. Now we have a third style - lockmasters throw down 2 lines tied together at the end. Bob caught the line-bundle, untied the lines and gave me a line for the back and he took a line in the bow.

Lockmaster hanging around

Bob making sure we are ready to begin the locking process
See the little lockmaster's head sticking out over the top
on the port side? 

Bob hanging on to a line in Lock 1

See the lockmaster about to throw the line down? 

Bob waiting for Kermit to put the
boat in place so we can catch the lines

Bob said best practice is to hang on to the line and stand on the far side of the boat opposite the wall. He must have repeated this five times until I pointed out that the hard top on the back makes this impossible. I am pretty sure I missed something since he repeated it so often. I can see the wisdom of this practice. It sure would have helped steady the boat if I was standing on the side opposite the wall. To do that I would have had to crawl over the dinghy on the swim platform and hold myself steady in a tiny 1 foot square portion of the swim platform. I am not that graceful so we had to accept second best practice.

A different Lockmaster
hanging out chatting with us

We had a starboard tie on the first and second locks then most everything was a port tie. The canal has two chambers from locks 3 through 8 to accommodate more freighters at any given time. The dual chambers have port side tie so the guys can handle a couple of freighters at the same time. Or at least that is what I thought.

Swirly water moved the boat around

The water really swirled,
pushing the boat around

Kermit making sure we are in the
right position

It takes lots of fenders
More here than at
other lock systems

The water going up is pretty volatile which is why they require 3 crew members.  At some points we hung on for dear life. One time Kermit had to help me because I was really hanging on. Some of this can be helped by the lockmasters who have the option to place the lines far apart at the top of the lock or closer together. If the lines are farther apart then I tended to go airborne. Kermit kept the engines on using engines like sort of a stern thruster to move us closer to the wall when needed. OK Michael, you can laugh your head off at the idea of us using any kind of thruster!!

This is how many fenders you need -
we had 5 on each side
but Good Karma is smaller

We encountered only a few other vessels going down bound while we went up. A few pleasure boats, a cruise ship, and we saw some freighters in the other chamber. It was a slow day.

We only passed a few other ships -
this is pretty much it

The Welland Canal is 26 miles long located entirely in Ontario. Eight locks lift boats 326 feet from the entrance at Lake Ontario to the ext at Lake Erie. Lake Ontario drains the entire Great Lakes. Locks 1 through 7 take place in the first half of the 26 miles with about 12 miles between Lock 7 and Lock 8. Lock 8 is just a tiny thing with only a 2 foot lift. You don't even have to tie up or grab a line. Just float around for a few minutes while the water goes up a little. No biggie.

See how the port side is at boat level
and the front gate is really high? This is
Lock 5

The coolest part of this lock system is Locks 4 through 6 which are tied together. We moved into Lock 4 and saw a huge gate in front of us, twice as high as the walls of the chamber. It was awesomely intimidating. We rose to the height of the walls then the front gate opened and we traveled a few hundred feet forward, grabbed another set of lines in front of another huge gate twice the height of the walls. Water rose, gates opened, we moved another few hundred feet forward, grabbed more lines in front of gates that were only a little higher than the chamber walls. It was amazing.

This is entering lock 6  immediately from lock 5

Saying goodbye to Bob!
Thanks Bob!!

We gabbed away with Bob while we traveled. He had a million stories. He retired a few years ago and does this whenever he can as a way to earn a little money and spend some time. Kind of a nice gig. All in cash of course.We said goodbye to Bob at the end of Lock 7. His wife came to pick him up. It was a good day.

Remember the two Prestige boats we encountered at Waterford? The ones that got all scraped up with the goofy captains? Well, Bob and his buddy were the extra crew on those two boats as well. Evidently they were only a day or so ahead of us even though we stopped in Toronto. They were awfully late and kept taking angry calls from the boat owner who expected those boats to be at the Chicago in water boat show. I checked and the in water boat show was in June and the indoor boat show at McCormick Place is in January so I don't know what show they were talking about but the owner was mad anyway.

Kermit and Rusty take a nap between locks 7 and 8

Here is the funny part. Remember I said they were drunk that night in Waterford? Well, evidently one of the captains has a DUI. The Welland Canal is in Canada. Canada refuses to allow entry to ANYONE with a DUI, including boat captains. So the captain with the DUI had to arrange transit from Oswego to Buffalo and find someone else to run his boat through from Oswego to Buffalo plus another crew member. Are we having fun yet? We just laughed and laughed. Kermit would make such a better captain than those two yahoos.

We finally made it out of Lock 8 at about 5pm. So that means we entered the Canal at about 12pm and exited about 5pm, a 5 hour transit. Not bad at all. But we were totally exhausted from such hard work (relative to the kind of stuff we normally do of course).

leaving lock 8

A boat recycling center

Entering Sugarloaf Harbour Marina

We headed slowly out of the canal system and around the corner to Sugarloaf Harbour Marina, the municipal manina for Port Colbourne, the town at the end of the Canal. This is a pretty marina at first look. There is a nice restaurant and a water ski training facility with a super looking course. But the boats are kind of crappy and dirty looking like they don't get a lot of use.

The most memorable part of this marina for us is the dock system. They have one of those new fangled dock systems with components that fit together like jig saw puzzles. We've seen a few of these marinas. In fact, the marina where we messed up the railing was made of this component system. It makes a fine surface for walking but it can be hell on boats. Which is where I am going with this.

We pulled up to the gas dock to fill up (about $4.75 per gallon converted from Canadian money but we really needed gas). We were tired and cranky. The dock hand was inexperienced and not very helpful but pleasant. He directed us to our dock assignment at the end of the main pier. We pulled over in a pretty wild wind. Ok, I think you know where I am going with this.

Component dock systems are screwed together with big bolts that stick out of the side of the dock. They are (or should be which is the point of this story) covered with a protective strip so the bolts don't stick out and hit boats. The cleats slide into a strip along the top side of the dock and are secured with more bolts at the top.

Hard to see but cleats stick out

In this case there was no protective strip along the side and the cleats were inserted into the cleat strip (for lack of a better term) in the wrong direction sticking out over the water.

So we have a magical combination: high wind, tired driver and crew, bolts sticking out the side, and cleats facing over the water instead of over the dock. Yes, you guessed it, we scraped the side of the boat when Kermit used the corner of the dock and a cleat to pivot off as he wrangled the boat into the dock spot. A big ugly 12 inch scrap 1/4 of an inch deep into the gel coat. Only the second damage of the trip and we are almost home. We got mad at each other then we got mad at ourselves then we cried a little. I should have lowered the fenders (I had not) and Kermit should have backed off and tried the docking again and the marina should have set up the dock system better. All around a tough way to end a really long exhausting day.

Kermit looks happy, doesn't he? 

We went to bed early and collapsed.

Next morning we left as early as we could for a long day across Lake Erie to Erie PA.