[Kyle]After watching the first upbound boat exit the canal the afternoon before, we were up nice and early in anticipation of being the first downbound vessel of the season. When we called the canal control office at 6am, the woman who answered seemed initially to have no information on file for us. Maryanne persisted and all was straightened out. When she was done, we were told we would have to wait until 7am; they were expecting another boat to check in. NOOOOOOO!!!!!
I mean, "Oh, that sounds fun."
My worries were twofold: First was that we were hoping our slightly early check-in would encourage Welland Control to let us go early. Ships have priority. There was an up-bound ship that was estimated to get to Lock 8 (the first in our direction) at 8:00. My hope was that we might be able to get through the lock and be out of its way by the time it got there. We were then hoping we could turn that into an early finish at Lock 1. If we couldn't sneak in early, we might have to wait for the ship to exit. {Maryanne:Kyle was so hopeful, but they actually permit boats to register for the day's locking up to 7am, so we'd always have to wait until then to start.}
My other concern about having another boat with us had to do with the line handlers. It was pretty clear that they were short-staffed this early in the season and I was worried they would want us to raft up with the other vessel so they only had the two lines to deal with on their end. Also, we were sure to be motoring more slowly than anybody else, so I didn't want to be the reason for somebody else's all-day grumble.
At twenty to seven, a sport fishing boat came around the corner and headed for the dock next to us. When they spun around, we couldn't help but notice that it had FOUR 350hp engines mounted on the stern. Here we go...
We helped them tie up. The skipper was wearing a polo shirt with the name of his delivery company on it. He had been called late the night before by the owner. The boat had been in the water for less than twelve hours and he and a yard guy were taking it to the other end at Port Weller. Knowing Welland Control would never let us split up, he started the conversation by saying he would go whatever speed we went, and to make sure, he was going to stay behind us the whole day, even if it meant he had to shut down three of his engines. That would cement Begonia's position as the first downbound boat of the 2024 season.
When 7:00 came and went and we had not heard anything, Maryanne gave Welland Control a call. They told us there was no time to get to Lock 8 before the ship. We would have to wait until after it passed us on the way out of the canal. Doh!
It wasn't too bad. The ship was running early. We started engines at 8:04.
Downbound, the Welland Canal starts off gently. The first lock, Lock 8, is really only there to remove whatever excess height the eastern part of Lake Erie is experiencing at the moment - generally 0.5 to 3.5 meters. It is about half again as long as Locks 1-7, which seems to be so that it can be transited at dead slow without stopping for the short water level change. After that, there is a two-hour stretch of long, straight nothing before Lock 7.
Our drop at Lock 8 was right around half a meter. Once our companion was in the lock, the upper doors were shut and both boats motored at idle down the middle of the lock. By the time we got about two-thirds of the way, the lower doors opened and the green exit light came on. That was easy.
The only ship we had to deal with as traffic was on the long, wide, flat part between Lock 8 and 7. There, the canal resembles a decent-sized river and passing was not the least bit unnerving.
The nice, and also the weird thing about the Welland Canal is that it is really for big ships and the whole thing is meant to be done in one go. The nice part about that is that once you enter, everything happens automatically. Welland Control follows your progress on CCTV and prepares all lift bridges and locks as you approach without the need for those of us on the vessels to say anything. All that is required of us is to obey the light signals telling us where to stop and when to go. The weird thing is that it feels strange to be traveling such a long distance and requiring the movement of so much heavy machinery and to not be able to bid "Good Morning" or "Good Afternoon" to our lock keepers or bridge tenders.
At Lock 7, since it is so near the other end of the canal, we got our first look at Lake Ontario over the far doors. It was pretty far down there. That's where Maryanne conjectured that we were about to do our fastest drop ever in a canal - 100 meters in only a few hours. Quickly running through it in my brain, I think I agree. I don't think we've ever managed half that altitude change in a day.
At lock 7, we also met our line handlers for the first time. They had four neat coils of polypropylene line waiting and handed two to each boat. Whew, no rafting! From them, we learned that most line handlers are students who do it for a summer job. They are still being trained at the moment. Our two guys seemed to be mechanics or engineers who got reassigned for the day. That was about as far as we got into the conversation before we dropped out of sight behind the lock wall. For safety reasons, they aren't allowed to stand at the edge of the high wall and lean over the edge to chit-chat. When we had dropped the full fifteen meters, the lower gate cracked. We let go our lines and they retracted upward and over the edge, pulled by unseen hands.
The next three locks, 6,5 and 4, are two parallel flights of three each, one set for each direction. This is where the canal traverses the Niagara Escarpment. It was here that we encountered our second ship, going the opposite direction. As we entered Lock 6 at the top, the ship eased its way into the adjacent lock at the bottom. Once we were tied up at the far end of ours, I spotted the Captain on the bridge, just three floors above me. I gave a smile and a wave. She did the same in return. Her ship started slowly rising. Then, as if someone else on my elevator remembered to press "Lobby", we dropped out of sight behind the wall and her whole ship disappeared.
As we started down in Lock 4, the up bound ship was just starting to leave Lock 6. Lock 4,5 and 6 have basically the same combined drop as Niagara Falls. Seeing the whole stern of a big ship way up there was quite unnerving as it sat just a few meters from the edge of the cliff made up by the big doors behind it.
After tidying up following our transit of the flight, our two line handlers took a while to get to Lock 3. Then even more time passed with nothing obvious happening and the lock gates wide open. Everything looked ready, but there were three sets of flashing red lights telling us to wait. Perhaps something broke. Yet another twenty minutes passed before the lights extinguished and the green lights came on. The line handlers handed us each a neat coil of line, which we set on deck, ready to pay out. Then, just as we started to go down, they went to their pickup, pulled out a bunch of take-out food containers, and then spread the feast out on their hood like it was a table. AAAAHHH HHAAAAHHHH!!!!!! {Maryanne:Of course the poor line handlers were entitled to a lunch break, but it hadn't occurred to Kyle, and he was really hoping we could get out onto Lake Ontario and get sailing as soon as possible.}
The last two locks went smoothly. When we were clear of Lock 1, we pulled to the side of the channel and slowed down a little so I could have time in the flat water of the last of the canal to get the sails ready for the sail across Lake Ontario. There is no good anchorage on this part of the southern shore, so we were planning an overnight sail to the northern shore, where we could anchor while waiting for favorable winds for the push to the northeast corner.
{Maryanne:We've been lucky enough to traverse a host of canals, in a host of different countries (Scotland, USA, Greece, France, Australia, Panama, etc) and several locks not even associated with a canal in other countries too (like Wales), but this was the first time we would adjust our water level by 100m in a single day!}
An early start on the Welland Canal. 8 locks and multiple lifting bridges, it was an amazing effort of resources for just us and the one other small 'pleasure' boat transitting on the day. A big thank you to the delivery captain (Peter R.) on the other boat for snapping some pictures of Begonia for us
We were soon sailing again, and were able to enjoy the skyline of Toronto in the distance with a backdrop of a beautiful sunset
Toronto was the obvious choice to wait, but we chose Frenchman's Bay because it is further east and would give us a head start during a short weather window. {Maryanne:We've been lucky enough to visit Toronto several times in the past}.
We made such good progress sailing that we ended up making it to Frenchman's right at midnight. The bay has a nice patch to anchor in three meters depth, but to get there, you have to traverse half a mile or so of 1.2 meter soundings. With Maryanne at the bow with a spotlight and me staring at the depth sounder, we crept into the bay in idle forward. When the number on the sounder finally climbed through two and then three, we dropped anchor. Whew, it had been an over sixteen-hour day.
In the morning, we were in bed when we heard the sound of something hitting the boat. Uh oh!
I emerged to find Begonia holding fast and nothing around but a couple of Mallards. I went back to bed and then we heard it again. As I was getting out of bed, we could clearly hear footsteps paddling along the deck this time. The ducks are back?
Webbed feet stepped on the hatch glass over Maryanne's head, then another pair of feet, then a tail.
"It's an otter!" Maryanne yelled as I reached the top of the stairs. I looked forward and didn't see anything. Then I looked back into the cockpit and there it was, sitting at the table like it was waiting for breakfast. Then it started poking around under the table, clearly looking for any leftovers from our last fishing foray. Good luck with that, Buddy! I shifted a bit to try to follow its explorations, but it heard me. It popped a furry, wet face up, made eye contact and then scurried away. Oh, this anchorage might be fun after all.
We rested-up and hunkered-down over a couple of days of foggy and rainy weather in Frenchman's Bay - and had an otter visit us a couple of times. The locals were a bit tougher than us and didn't let a bit of rain stop them from their dragon boat practice session (we stayed inside with the heating on!)
[Maryanne]The Welland canal is primarily used by large commercial boats plying grain, copper and more back and forth, and those boats barely fit in width wise. There are 8 locks and multiple lifting bridges to traverse. Each lock is over 24m (80ft) wide, and at least 233.5 m (766ft) long. Locks 1-7 drop/lift an average of 13m-15m (43ft-49ft), and lock 8 (the guard lock) just adjusts for the slight extra distance to match the current hight of Lake Erie. It is all a HUGE feat of engineering.
For pleasure boats planning to transit the Welland Canal, there is a lovely web page and downloadable booklet full of all the information you might need (like what side to tie up at each lock, speed limits, how to make the reservations, etc). Everything you need to know (Welland Canal). Like most locks, downbound is always much easier than upbound. For upbound a crew of 3 is the minimum permitted (for down we were able to travel with just the two of us). It is advisable to plan for a 10-12 hour transit time. You can track the individual ETA times for boats at each lock (for the Welland Canal and the whole of the St Lawrance Seaway) here as well as via Marine Traffic and other web sites for those boats with AIS (all the commerical boats and some of the pleasure craft).
