06-17 Canal Boating in the Sun IS More Fun

We arise to SUN and a dry deck on this beautiful Sunday.



So let's try and explain how a lock works on our Leeds and Liverpool Canal since we'll be doing this 52 times in the next week.

I pull over to the side where there are white bullocks, to tie off to if necessary, and drop Karen off. She walks up to the lock and sees what the water level is IN the lock that we're going to go into. If the water level is the same then she can open the lock gates on my side and I can motor the boat into the lock.



After I am safely into the lock she will close both gates behind me. In this case since we will be going down in the lock I can help her by getting out of the boat on one side and closing the gate.

Occasionally, as was the case in our next lock, the water in the lock is down and we need to put water into the lock in order for me to motor into the lock. Karen has used her lock wrench to rachet the gate paddle up allowing water to pour into the empty lock. After the lock is full she will rachet the paddle into the down position. Normal procedure is to close all gates and lower all paddles so the lock is ready for boaters going upstream or downstream.



Now we need to lower the water and my boat so that it is at the level of the next pool. I am ratcheting the left gate paddle up and a gentleman who lives at the bottom of the locks is helping with the right side paddle.



I need to get back into the boat so that I can steer her out.



One gate is open and the second will be opened shortly so I can get out of this lock.



After I leave, Karen will have to shut both gates and lower the paddles of both gates.

If the locks are close together Karen will walk to the next one and I'll just dock the boat waiting for the lock gates to open. Sometimes she'll get onboard and I'll take her to the next lock.

Cool. Our canal is an aqueduct over a river!



Sometimes people will be walking along the canal and will help close the heavy gates. It is really appreciated. The little girl is waiting for my boat to pass so she can tell her father when to close the gate.



This is a place where we can fill up with water. We just did that and Karen is now waiting for me to manuever around the double-wide boat and come into her lock.



In this case the lock gates were opened by people in another boat that wanted to go in the opposite direction. That's always helpful. The more helpers the better.



Obviously Karen is walking to the next lock and I took this picture.



After locking through 6 locks we took a break and had lunch and then a little while later down the canal we tied up and walked up into the little town of Gargrave. It was Sunday and not much was open but we found the grocery store and bought an air freshener for the bathroom and some ice cream.



Back down to the boat and while we were on our way we met the only pair of kayakers we would see.





We'll cover how we get OUR boat under these bridges in tomorrow's blog.

...and then shortly before we stopped for the evening we saw these characters on the back of a long-term-mooring canal boat.