Integrity Cruise

Day 71: Lock C-5 to Lock C-11 at Comstock, NY

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Day 71: Saturday, June 25th: We arose early but got underway about 9:15 am after French toast for breakfast. Yummy! There are several bridges on the Champlain Canal that the navigation chart shows as 17 ft. clearance. We decided the chart was out of date, or that our nerves had gotten jaded. For example this bridge is charted at 17-foot clearance:

But passing under these low bridges has become old hat, so to speak:

As we approached lock C-6 at Fort Miller we got a good view of the spillway rapids, the dam to the right of them and the lock. The lock has its own bridge that goes to the dam:

Just past C-6 was this bridge and Ruth had to keep chronicling. It is unique with the curved roadbed and flat top. It was also charted to have 17-foot clearance:

Perhaps the most remarkable man-made feature on the canal was this unusual "guard gate". There are several on the New York canal system, but this is the only one on the Champlain Canal. This one is named Crocker's Reef Guard Gate. They look like giant guillotines and are designed to be floodgates. They are closed to control flooding in the spring. Impressive:

A few miles past the guard gate the Hudson River and the Champlain Canal split. It can be a little confusing at this junction. In this picture, the main channel seems to go off to the left, but there is a river going straight to the right of it (it goes to Fort Edward), and - wait - there's a lock for the canal on the right!

Farewell Hudson River:

Hello, lock C-7:

This bridge was also charted at 17 feet. Does that mean left, center, right or average?

Lock C-8 is the last lift lock heading north. That is, the highest pool on the Champlain Canal is between locks C-8 and C-9. This sailboat was emerging as we arrived. Its crew was Hispanic and we heard them calling each lock on the radio as they came south. They probably didn't realize that each lockmaster calls ahead to alert the next lock of traffic coming. We never had to call the lock on the radio:

We're not sure if we have provided a picture of one of the transiting sailboats with their mast un-stepped, so here is a closeup of "Umido" in that condition:

Vermont is the home of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. This dairy farm was one of the first we saw. We guessed the farm was raising chocolate ice cream for Ben and Jerry's:

As we made our way further north we noticed the "rip rap" rocks became colorful shale. This picture is an attempt to capture the colors:

Since water must be provided to keep the Canal deep enough to navigate, this feeder canal was dug to bring water from nearby Lake George into the canal. There are a few streams that also feed the canal, but not enough to do the whole job:

Here at C-9 you will notice that the far gate is very short; that's because C-9 is a "down" lock:

A little further along the canal gets narrow. We rounded a bend and saw this big cliff with pretty White Birch trees. Quite a different landscape from the South Carolina low country!

While the original plans for the Champlain Canal included twelve locks, they only built eleven of them, eliminating number 10; so the next lock was C-11. We decided to tie to the south side lock wall for the night. It was quite peaceful in spite of the Amtrack track being a few hundred yards away, and the State Correctional Facility (prison) being ½ mile away. Ruth decided to lie on the grass and read. It had been another hot day in the 90s. Not what we had expected!

Tomorrow…we enter Lake Champlain!

Position tonight: N43 27.963 W073 26.238

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