Erie Canal, Morning of July 20

Lockport houses several locks along the Erie Canal.  Although the locks no longer accommodate large barges they do service small cruise boats, fishing boats, and kayaks.  Ernie had received permission to paddle the section of canal where the locks were located.

We found an easy put in about a mile from the locks.  Laurie has a neat inflatable kayak and she pumped it up while the guys shuttled the cars to the take out down river from the locks.

 Nancy and Maynard rented a canoe.  Looks like Maynard is doing most of the work.

We had quite a group of Kayakers.

 We had to share the canal with the cruise boat.  The biggest challenge was to get out of the way and hug the side of the canal as the boat went by.

We floated towards the locks .

We paddled under the widest bridge in the US.

 Joel is analysing the bridges structure.

We paddled by some old building in Lockport just before the locks.

The locks are at the end of the bridge.  Once we reached the locks we had to paddle back to the other side and wait for the lock to fill up before the doors were opened. The lock tender told us to hold on to the sides of the canal as the current would get pretty strong.  Well, there isn't much to hold on to, and as I was reaching for a large beam to grab hold onto I reached way too far and dumped my kayak. I managed to get back in before the current swept me to the locks, but my camera was dumped also. Dead camera.   The day was really hot, so I did get cooled off.

We went through two locks.  Each lock raised about 50 ft then the doors were opened and the water lowered really quickly.

This is the first lock.

 You can see the difference in the water level as the water is lowered

 That's quite a difference!!  Then who who procedure is preformed again.

 We are all lined up waiting for the second set of doors to open.

Its a fun ride as the the water level lowers and it happens within a matter of minutes.

Once on the other side of the locks the canal flows pretty slowly.  You can see the original locks in the picture above.

 We continued on down the canal for another mile or so and then reached the take out.

Thanks Nancy, for sharing the pictures of the locks.


Later that evening, I went back to the locks with my IPhone and took some pictures of the closed locks.  This is a picture of the full lock.

 The smaller lock on the left is one of the original locks.

After the paddling we had lunch at Reids where you can a hamburger for $1.00!!! But wait the day is not over.  We have reservations for the Jet boat ride later this afternoon.