Friday, July 27 Portage Lock 39 and Kirkfield Lock
Friday, July 27 Portage Lock 39
We left Fenelon Falls and slid through Rosedale lock and get to the 2nd lift lock, the Kirkfield lock.
Always something to maneuver around… This was just pulling away from the wall.
With rocks all over…
We had to travel thru lakes and ultimately into a very narrow canal that takes you to the Kirkfield Lift Lock. The canals are very narrow and reminded Tom and Colletta of the Dismal Swamp.
We need to make a Securite call on the VHF radios indicating that you are entering the channels. Two large boats would have difficult time passing each other.
No problem – I’ve got this…
This is the final channel leading up to the Kirkfield lift lock. If you look down at the end of the water you will notice a difference. The trees are lower.
When we got to the Kirkfield lock you are essentially 45 feet higher than the water below. We started out with a normal lock through with us entering in the tub that was at the top. Like the Peterborough Lock the upper and lower tubs counterweight each other. When the two boats were secured, the two tubs start moving – one up and one down. As we were about 3 feet from the bottom of the lift, our tub stopped. It had rained quite a bit the night before and a strong wind was pushing water up the channel toward the lift before we had entered the upper tub. While the other tub was at the bottom, and our tub was at the top, the other tub took on too much water in it. It went up but was too heavy, and our tub was too light for it to settle all the way down into the water.
Apparently, this is a rare event. We were told to move our two boats completely forward and secure them against a high pressure surge of water. Then, they had to open a small port that let water pour into our tub from the canal above until the tubs weighed roughly the same. It was a little tense at first not knowing if we would make it down to the bottom so they could open the gate and let us out. After they added the water they had to manually lower the tub the rest of the way down so they could open the gate and we could cruise out.
We are at the top.
Coming down.
Houston, we have a problem. The lift is stuck!
We moved our boat forward so they could dump a massive amount of water from the canal above.
We went to 2 more locks before we called it a day. We stayed at the bottom of Portage Lock # 39. We had a nice picnic dinner right at the lock wall.
This lock was very turbulent when they were letting water out…
This is the mechanism they use to open one of the doors. A matching system is on the other side for the opposite door.