Our 24th wedding anniversary today. Waiting at the Welland Canal to go up through the locks is definitely an interesting way to celebrate! There are 2 other boats waiting with us. Beautiful day today. We arrived at 1000 hours and waited until 1500 before we got the go ahead to proceed. A huge freighter was going down just before we were allowed to enter. Lock 1 turned out to be easier than we had anticipated. Lock 6 was a bit scary but only because the boat behind us went out of control. Lock 7 had a huge hole in the wall that almost claimed 2 of our fenders. Luckily they popped out before Mike had to cut them loose. They could have taken our railing off. Our spreaders were in danger of being smucked as well, but we figured out that there was too much weight on the port side so I ended out using my JBoat skills and did some hiking.
I also managed to make a stew during the locking up as there is down time. My lock stew.
Got through the last lock at 2200 hours. A 2 ft. rise. Easy peasy. Tied up at the municipal dock at Port Colbourne. All in all, a successful and exciting day. And an anniversary to remember.
