We had another gorgeous morning as we headed out ahead of our new friends on "Zingara".
Zingara caught up with us at the first lock we entered. We knew that they travel at a faster speed than we do so we invited them to pass us so we didn't hold them up.
Later on, they accused us of planning that strategy as we found ourselves in a mine field of debris and large logs. As we traveled on down the canal we saw this beautiful white sheen on the water surface ahead. The cottonwood trees are in full bloom and shedding their "cotton" everywhere. The cotton on the water helped camouflage the debris and we crept through the carpet dodging the larger pieces as we could. Zingara cleared a nice path for us and all we had to do was follow!
This lasted for about a mile! A little stressful for us but a lot stressful for them! We came to the next lock only to find that they couldn't get one of the door open. A "fast" boat came out with no difficulty and the lock master said we could come on through but didn't know the width of the opening to know if our boats could make it safely through. Zingara decided to creep through and we could soon see that she would be OK. We are not as wide as she is so knew we'd be OK but still concerned, knowing what a current can do to us. Blessedly the lockmaster got the door fixed so we could go through safely! Poor Zingara was sorry that we let them go ahead of us :( They deserve the medal of honor!
The next lock was a port side tie up only. Usually you are allowed to tie up on either side of the lock, but this one had a problem with one of the valves so limited the tie ups for safety purposes. Zingara of course went first and we followed with one other boat. The lockmaster opted to hold the lock for 3 MORE Boats coming up. He said if we all moved up we would fit. We were not happy with his decision but had no say. We were all bow to stern with very little wiggle room. It was a very stressful (I've said that word a lot haven't I?) locking but we all made it with no bumps or bruises!
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful but beautiful - these huge cliffs were spectacular.
As mentioned early we hadn't had many spectators but here we had 4!
We did have to end the day with a bit more excitement. We had planned to call it an early day and stay at a small marina (only $1 per foot - ours is 42') but the other boats we were locking through with were going on. We were one of the slow movers of the bunch with a sailboat behind us. Everyone else was out of our sight, when we saw Zingara coming towards us. They had word from the "fast boats" in the group that the next lock was closed waiting for two barges to go through. The marina filled up fast with everyone waiting for the lock to open. We arrived at the marina at 1:00 - it was 4:30 before they finally opened the lock and the lock system shuts down at 5:00 so everyone opted to stay put for the night. The marina was full stem to stern! This was taken the next morning after a few had left.
Here is the culprit that caused all the problems. Two barges pushed by one tug. Only one barge at a time will fit in the lock. Interesting!
Docked at Ilion Marina, NY 6/11/17
No comments:
Post a Comment