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Follow the yellow brick road . . . |
Helpful links:
- Use Boat Finder to see what we see. Search on kd3fly-12, then click on "street view"
On June 12 we cruised from Lock 24 in Baldwinsville to Phoenix, NY. That means we have left the Erie Canal and are starting north on the Oswego Canal, toward Lake Ontario.
Masterful Lockage
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Approaching the lock: the lock tender opened the lock doors for us. |
Over the next three months, we'll pilot through dozens of locks. Happily, our boat is called a "LockMaster." Yup,
Captain Peter Wiles, who built this boat (and a fleet of others) in the 1980s, designed it to be super-easy to take through a lock.
- It's straight-sided (not curved) so it nestles flat against the lock wall.
- Nifty walkways down each side let the "bow bunny" scamper to the front to grab the line to hold the boat in place
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This lock is full, We're going DOWN. My job as bow bunny: grab the line hanging from one of those blue-and-white floats. Then, HANG ON |
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Compare this image to the one above. Notice the watermark on the walls. The lock tender opened a big drain at the bottom of the lock. Water flows out, and down we go! |
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These military-style buildings are typical canal architecture from about 1910 or so. |
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Gates are opening. They make quite a screech. At some locks, herons have learned to fly in at the sound, to look for fish that may have gotten crunched--easy pickings! |
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And we're on our way. Wave to the lock tender and say, "Thanks for the smooth ride!" |
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