Day 71- Peterborough, ON lock 20 to Young's Point, ON lock 27

Today was the day! If you read yesterday's blog you learned about the Peterborough Lift Lock. Today Snow Goose was in it.

Several of these pictures are similar, but all taken from the Goose today.

Approaching the Lift Lock #21.

Waiting for the green light.

We have the green light. Entering the caisson (imagine a big bathtub).

The front wall looks like something from the Tower Of Terror.

Magnificent iron work.

What? There are doors behind this?

The second boat, that happens to look a lot like Snow Goose, comes in behind us.

A third and fourth boat join us. It was a full load.

The black ram that holds the water and lifts and lowers the caissons can be seen between the concrete towers.

Here you can see the side rails set into the concrete that the caissons follow.

Here are the two goofs who were acting like little kids

at the circus for the first time.

We have now traveled almost to the top.

At the top these other boats seem to be hanging high in the air.

Look closely, through the trees, and you will see that this is a shot 

looking straight down to the steps below.

We have now gone 65' up to the next part of the waterway. 

Waiting for the gate to open to continue our journey.

Out we go!

Here come the 3 other boats after us.

This video shows it all happening in real time. Enjoy! We did.

There is a bike/walking path along part of the waterway.

There are beautiful wild flowers along it.

Lots of golf balls in those bushes. The white spot is a guy looking.

The Trent-Severn Waterway goes through this university campus. The next 7 pictures are of the Trent University. Be sure to study the bridge and it's twisted concrete supports.

If it hasn't been explained before, these locks have cables affixed to the sides of the chamber.  You motor on in, stop and wrap a line around a cable and it slides up or down,  Up locks can be somewhat turbulent as the water fills them, down locks are quite benign.

Today was the first day that we filled up the chamber with 4 big boats for a series of 4 locks.  If a boat is carrying too much speed approaching the lock, even when the boat slows down, you need to be alert.  You may know that boats create a bow wave, most commonly identified by their wake.  They also create a stern wave that follows the boat.  The fellow following us had a habit of carrying a tad too much speed into the approach and slowing down at the last minute.  While his boat was now slow, the stern wave would catch up and pass him and surge into the lock chamber.  This caused our boat to be pushed dramatically forward with the wave, then back again as the wave bounced off the gates at the front of the chamber and hit us a second time.

This happened at each of the locks today, but at the last lock we shared with them, the surge was so violent that the cable, the stern of our boat was attached to, snapped at the bottom.  

Cheryl had to do some quick line handling to reattach us at the next cable located 12 feet further into the chamber wall.  I know the locktender had a discussion with the captain behind us, but we don't know if he really appreciated that he was the culprit.

The picture shows the cable after it was pulled from the chamber. It didn't whiplash, it just made a loud pop sound and was flopping around, no longer keeping us on our side of the chamber. We keep an extendable boat hook within reach and it was necessary to reach the next cable so I could tie to it and keep our boat from banging into the neighboring boat beside us.

A fully blooming smokebush.

I want it.

Another osprey guarding her nest.

They must have fun parties at this house.

We managed to find a small marina and get settled in before the rains came. Excellent dinner at Lock 27 Restaurant which was located steps away from the boat. They had plaid flannel shirts in 10 different plaids for the kids. So cute!

Another exciting and lovely day on the water. 

Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

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