We awoke to a beautiful Saturday morning. As it turned out, we were the only boat in the chamber in every lock for the whole day! This made it easy since we didn’t have to worry about hitting other boats!

This couldn’t have been a more beautiful day. The temperatures in the mid 70s, clear blue sky, and just a light breeze. The waters were great as well.

The first five locks were one right after the other. After calling the lock on channel 13 we would wait for the lockmaster to empty the chamber, open the gates, and give us the green light. We would then enter the chamber and find a rope to hold onto. The chamber doors would close behind us and then water would begin filling the chamber, which would float us upwards as the chamber filled. When the water level matched the height of the higher body of water, the opposite doors would open and we would float out of the chamber and continue on our journey.

The entire process might take 15 minutes, but at times it took longer for various reasons.

At the end of the day we had gone through nine locks. We stopped at a place called Riverlink Park, which had a nice waterfront park area and a good little restaurant.