Day 104, Friday Oct. 4th-A very exciting day!

Day 104, Friday Oct. 4^th

We wake up and make coffee and pop our heads out the companionway (doorway) at about 7:45 and everyone else is gone.  We are the only pleasure boat left on the wall.  Guess everyone is more anxious than us.  We are in the lock by about 9:00 though and Judy and John have already caught up to us from lock 16.  Also in the lock is power boat Legacy that we were stranded with in Little Falls so it is good to see familiar faces again.  We are the first boat to exit with 2 large power boats behind us and about 50 feet out of the lock we come to a stop.  We are stuck in muck.  We quickly yell to the power boaters behind us to stop so they don’t run into the back of us and fortunately they see us not moving.  They are able to pass us after a few minutes on the port side.  We crank up the engine, forward and back but are not moving.  This is the part where the water level has been reduced due to lock 13 being worked on.  It never occurred to us we would get stuck providing we stayed in the channel.  The power boat legacy offered a tow so we scrambled to get a tow rope ready.  Due to the currents from the dam it was very difficult for captain John of Legacy to maneuver close enough for Dawson to throw a rope to Dennis and Brian.  After 30 minutes we were connected and they started to pull but they were pulling us to starboard (right) and it is shallower over there due to silting from the dam.  They dropped our line and it took another 20 minutes to get into position and try again.  By now John had mastered the manoeuvring in currents and was able to pull from to the port.  Slowly we started to move. This was all very stressful because we are revving the motor.  Dawson throwing the line unsuccessfully caught risked the line getting into the powerboats engine, the power boat at times was reversing towards us in the current.  One time we fended him off as it was that close.  We were so thankful for their help, lots of camaraderie being built with the delay of the canal. 

Maraki-John and Lucy's bateaux

While this was going on, John and Lucy had gotten stuck getting out of the lock on the cement sill which is the bottom cement buttress the lock doors close on, much worse than stuck in muck.  The lock keepers thought they had 7 foot 7 inches but only had 6 foot 7 inches clearance which is probably why we got stuck too. 

They thought there was another foot of water in the lock and canal.  Well the lockkeeper decided he could flush them out so opened a valve and sent a wave down the lock to push them over the sill, but 5 inches of lift was needed and the wave came and sent their boat sideways against the sill when they could not get over it.  I looked back as we were dealing with our stress and they were almost totally leaned over.  I did grab my camera and got a shot of it, but they were starting to recover vertically by then, but still in crisis.  They struggled for another 30 minutes to get turned properly, all the while blocking up canal 14 for all the anxious boaters.  After all this John and Lucy had the lockkeeper measure his depth and he realized he was a foot short, so they took stop logs out of the dam to raise the water level.  We were free by then, but this would also have solved our problem.  It took only 20 minutes to  raise the water level and they were free, in total about a 2 hour stoppage at lock 14.  We figure we were about an hour stuck.  We were now in the section of the canal where the water had been reduced.  We could see along the shoreline that the water was down and our depth sounder was reading around 9 feet most of the time.  We were now humbled and realized how easy something can go wrong so creeped along for the next 8 miles very slowly to the next lock which was lock 13 that is under major repairs. 


Beautiful fall colours reflected along the way

Work on lock 13

 We made it into lock 13 to find out that there was no drop now at this lock.  They just were closing the doors in front and behind controlling that the water levels stayed the same.  No wonder up stream was so shallow.

One of many bald eagles

We continued on lock after lock witnessing the damage done by the June flood this spring that also shut down the canal for an extended period.  Most of the lock landscapes were all torn apart, there were work boats everywhere using up all of the available tie up space.  This part of the canal was not nearly as nice for facilities and dockage.  All of this part of the canal is actually harnessing the Mohawk River.  The western part is actually a dug ditch so much easier to control.  Most of the locks on this eastern end are not walking distance to towns etc. so just tie up and leave in the morning and make some mileage.

Tied up alongside the work boats

Finally we are nearing lock 8 which is the spot we had chosen to tie up to for the night. There is very little space as there were work boats all along the shore.  We managed to fit in as did John and Lucy who had caught up to us at the last lock.  We also had been corresponding with Amicus and Ocean Cowboy behind us and they were trying to make lock 8 also.  By now it is 6:00 p.m. and Amicus and Ocean Cowboy get nicely tied up and we get word another 5 boats are behind them.  It is 7:15 and pitch black when the other 5 boats get into the lock.  They lock down and the guys help them get tied up at the wall below the lock. 

Mike from Amicus joins us for dinner and soon it is 10:00 and we are off to bed, another full day behind us and another ahead of us.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson