Today our goal is to cross Lake Onieda, which is about halfway across the distance of the canal. It is 11:00 am., and we have completed Lock # 19.

Today's pictures include two shots of the tallest lock on the canal....# 17, which we completed yesterday.  It has a 40.5 foot change in canal elevation from one side to the other....the lock does not have gates, but rather we had to sail under a concrete wall, that was lowered after we went into the lock.  Threre would be too much water pressure to be able to use a gate with that much water to hold back.  After they started letting the water in...(in every case, we come into a lock on the low side, they have to raise us up and then let us out into high water...)  the water turbulence was mighty....it kept pushing the boat against the wall of the lock, and all three of us were very busy keeping the boat off the wall as much as we could.

So here is the view as we prepared to go under the concrete wall...to give you perspectice on the size...our boat right now is just over 16 feet from the water line to the top of the bridge....and we sailed under the concrete wall with ease....

Here we are at the top of the lock, looking back, you can see the treetops of the trees below the lock

We saw some families doing some rapelling on the granite walls that showed the signs of blasting from the original days of canal construction..

We have seen only a handful of boats traveling.....going in our direction we know of two boats, and coming toward us, we have encounted maybe one-half a dozen boats over the three days.....could it be the gas? Take care....Helen