June 13, 2019 – We knew it would be a wet day, but hoping to beat the wind that was to pick up later, we called Lock 14 at 7:01, and let him know we were ready to cast off from the Canajoharie town dock, and head to the lock, that we could see a few hundred yards away, as soon as he was open. He probably downed his first cup of coffee as he readied for us, and we were in the lock shortly after that.
During the route today, we traversed a section of the canal that was NOT actually the Mohawk River. It was much narrower, and straight between some angular corners. We could see a bicycle path along the side, where the original mule towpath would have been.
Soon we came to Lock 17, the biggest lift on the whole system, at 40 feet. It is also unique in that only it, and a lock in Canada, have a ‘guillotine’ gate at the lower end, that lifts to let boats go underneath, rather than open like gates at all the other locks on the canal. It had a tug with a barge in the chamber locking down when we arrived, so we and another boat had to wait on the wall until it was clear.
Then it was our turn to enter the lock under the lift gate- it’s supposed to be 20′ clearance, and our antennas are 19′ – we made it fine into the deep chamber, right behind another Looper boat.
Wow, it’s definitely imposing once inside- see the man crossing the top of the gates.
It was a long, slow lift, and we were glad to finally get through and onward toward the town of Little Falls. Very interesting how some of the homes actually had balconies right over the water!
We got a bit of a treat as we came up to the small park on the right- an old-time tugboat, that is actually still in use on the canal. In speaking with the head of the Little Falls marina, it turns out that his son is the captain of the Governor Roosevelt.
We pulled into the really nice town marina at Little Falls, one that we had heard other Loopers rave about. We quickly got the run-down from all the Loopers who’d already tried some of the restaurants in town, and gave the boat a hasty washdown for the dirty fenders and side decks. Then, off to the Copper Moose for dinner.