Chambly Canal
Monday, July 3
We left Saint Jean at around 9:30 only to be told by the bridge tender that they wouldn’t open the bridge right next to the marina until 10 o’clock so we had to pull over on a dock and waited for the bridge to open. After we left the first bridge and first lock we cruised single file down a very very narrow canal. When we were almost to the second bridge, Greek’s Folly started moving backward at us. His port shifting cable broke while the transmission was in reverse. The boat started to head towards the rocks in this very narrow channel. Tom was scrambling trying to get control of the boat. He jumped down into the engine room and manually put the transmission into neutral but not before his boat hit the rocks on the side of the canal. Luckily, we were very close to the bridge and a floating dock. We came along side and they threw us a line and we were able to pull them off the rocks and to a dock that was by the bridge. Captain John finally got a chance to use his towing endorsement of his captains license. The bridge tender came out and helped grab their lines and helped us both tie up on the dock. John became a hero because he had an extra shifting cable on board that would work for their boat. We had replaced one stiff shifter cable this winter. John had bought two extra cables that he had planned on installing on our boat at a later date. Two hours later and we were back cruising down the Chambley canal.
Through this narrow canal you can only cruise at about 6 mph. There’s a bike path that follows the canal and most bikers passed us and were riding faster than we cruised.
That day we went through seven bridges that had to be opened, and nine locks and we only travel to 12.6 miles.
The locks are only 100 foot long and 21 feet wide so putting our two boats in this narrow short well was quite a feat. Short Vacation took the starboard side (down wind) and Greek’s Folly took the port side (up wind).
No rain but very very windy and cool and Coletta had quite a time having to keep their boat from moving over to our side of the lock because of the wind. All of these locks are operated manually. The crank the gates open and closed by hand. After they have the doors closed, they manually crank the very small doors on the big doors to let the water in our out. This is old world technology that still works today.
The fact that you are working hard to go through the locks and keeping the boat under control, you also have all kinds of people at the locks viewing the procedure. Many of them have questions and are really interested in where you have been and where you are going.
The last four locks are like stairsteps. You pull into the lock, they lower you, open the doors, you motor forward 100 feet into the next lock, they lower you open the doors you cruise in to the next lock, etc. The locks are run by college students. The manual way they operate the lock is a cool feat to see. The last Stair step locks let you out into a very wide basin where we anchored for the night. It was quite a a long day only doing 12 miles, and we totally enjoyed our anchoring beer.
