10/10/26: The Welland Canal
5 days ago
1 min read
Our reservation to transit the first lock of the Welland Canal was at 9:00 a.m., so we arrived at the approach wall by 7:00 a.m. Most of the remainder of our trip revolved around getting through this canal, so it was with a bit of a scare that one of the lift bridges broke down around 8:00 a.m. Fortunately, it was back in service by 10:00 a.m., and we were cleared into Lock 1. This lock was similar in scale to most of the others we've transited, and we locked through without a hitch. It was the same story with Locks 2 and 3.
When we arrived at Lock 4, however, we were presented with something entirely new. Locks 4, 5, and 6 form a flight of back-to-back stepped chambers paired alongside a parallel flight for downbound traffic. These chambers were massive, with lifts of roughly 45 to 55 feet each creating colossal concrete walls rising well over 90 feet around us. Looking up at the stern of a tanker ship 90 feet above your head is an eerie, deeply disconcerting sight. Especially when the barrier between you and it are some leaking doors built in the 1930's. Happily, the lock held, and we stepped cleanly out the top.
From there, we cleared Lock 7 just as the sun dipped below the horizon, but ended up pinched behind a commercial freighter crawling at 2 knots along the channel all the way to Lock 8. We finally cleared the southern cut into Lake Erie around 10:00 p.m., set our watches, and pointed the bow toward Detroit.
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