A Beautiful, Wet, Slog; Equipment Malfunctions; and, Another Milestone!

Yesterday, we arose early and got underway in the rain to transit the Champlain Canal from Lock One Marina in Waterford through Lock 12 in Whitehall. The beautiful, largely undeveloped, surroundings provided a strong handfull of bald eagles, both mature and immature, lots of great blue herons, osprey, a carolina wren, and a variety of warblers more often heard than seen.

But the locks and low bridges captured most of our attention. From Waterford, through eight locks, we climbed 124.8 feet to Fort Edward at 140 feet above sea level and then descended 43.5 feet to the level of Lake Champlain. We had hoped to get an early start at Lock C-2 but two boats upbound from Lock C-1 held us up for almost an hour and a half. The reality that the same lock tender operates both locks really drove that delay.

While we waited for them and sat in the current below below Half Moon Lock and Dam with the boat's wonderful stay-in-place system on, we enjoyed the day's one bright spot.

We traveled with the two, very slow boats through Locks 2, 3, and 4. The nearly 15 mile distance between Locks 4 and 5 gave us the chance to get far enough ahead that we locked through all of the remaining locks by ourselves. At some, we received a green light at arrival, entered the lock and got an immediate lift or drop. At others, we waited for the lock to be filled and, in several cases, just for a lock tender to show up. It was nearly impossible to contact several of the locks though the Admiral often got a message through by contacting the lock before or after. We had a wait at Lock 11 for the tender and didn't lock through until almost 5:00--official lock closing time. Nonetheless, he agreed to drive downstream and let us through Lock 12 so we could reach Whitehall Marina, our destination.

We endured a steady rain most of the day that occasionally broke to a light mist before returning in force. Since you have to get out at every lock to hold the boat while it fills or empties, we became damp and then soaked. But our worst problem was the failure once again of the windshield wiper in front of the helm. This made it extremely difficult to see navigation buoys and debris in the canal. It put a lot of pressure on the Admiral in the middle chair to coach the skipper and point out which way to head and how to turn to avoid logs, branches and flotsam. Also, she occasionally geared up in raincoat, life jacket and marriage savers to go outside and squeegee that window. For Cap, the relief of being able to see was immediate but, sadly, short-lived.

Bridge clearances also worried us. We, of course, have the published standard "pool" bridge heights but each "pool" we were in was at some level of flood stage. We cleared the lowest bridge by about 4 inches. At most of the bridges, we slowed to a crawl; the Admiral looked back from the bow to observe our anchor light and antennae, and I stood ready to engage reverse. Mercifully, we never had to do that.

As with all things, however, we made it through and arrived at Whitehall Marina a bit after 6:00 with a warm welcome from Lynn and his team. And, the day turned a milestone for me. First thing in the morning I recorded mile 5000 of my Loop journey.