SURVIVORS: RICK AND DONNA GROSS, AND PAM AND TOM VANHORN
LET US JUST SAY UP FRONT THAT THIS WAS A DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 15, 2010
Weather: cloudy, thunderstorms, sunny, thunderstorms, sunny/muggy/dark
Canal and Lakes: flat to 2 foot swells
Night Mooring: Peterbough; Little Lake Marina
Dinner: on board: brats and deli salads
Comments:
Dull start to the day - the T-S locks open at 8:30 a.m. - patience is a virtue!
By 9:00 we were locking through #13, enjoying bagels with cream cheese, and checking our Trent-Severn Wildlife cards, distributed at each lock by the lock keeping assistants.
Just above lock 14, a set of osprey nests, with their osprey in residence, were nicely perched on an electical pole and a high powered light, despite human efforts to create perches for their nests. So cool!!! Huge nests, much like those of eagles.
The Double Locks 16 and 17 were on our horizon, and would be our second such set. After last nights’ experience we were all JUICED to take photos from above as we rose another 50 feet in these spectacular double locks.
As we approached the double, Rick slowed LF while Donna leaped to the wall. Her mission: to capture LF and the elevation changes from the Trent River through the two locks. By now it was raining, and there were some 100 steps to run up. But, no bother. Donna would dry.
Great photos of course, with LF tied tightly to the lock wall behind another boat of similar size. And, up they came! For Donna, a neat sight from the bottom of lock 16, to the top of 16, to the top of 17 looking down as both boats rose.
Thunder and lightning now moved quickly from Campbellford toward the lock. Tom, on the foredeck was getting pretty soaked, as was Pam on the aft. Donna had found refuge on the porch of the lock master’s house. And Rick worked the lines with Pam. Quietly LF and her lock-mate started to rise.
Suddenly, buffeting against a swirling wind inside the lock, Loon Feather strained at her ropes, sending her bow away from the wall. Tom leaned with all his weight to get her back - 6, 8, 10 feet she swung.
Shouts. Shuffles. Sliding on the slick bow. But, finally, Tom won, though still struggled as LF continued her rise inside the lock. At last, the water level maxed at the top of #16 (bottom of #17), and the boats were calm.
Meanwhile, lock master Dale, stationed in a little shed at the top of the locks, started pushing remote controls to open the lock gates between 16 and 17. This would allow LF and her fellow boat to pass through to #17 to rise another 25 feet again.
Suddenly, thunder roared and lighting soared.
FLASH! POP! ZZZZZ CHCHCHCH KKKKKK!!!! (in green) from the nearby electrical pole.
And again, POP! ZZZZZZZ! FLASH FLASH KKKKKK!!! (in white).
One last try of the remote controls, KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK! CHCHCHCH! ZZZZZZZZZZZ POP!!!
Then, nothing.
We all saw it - the electrical pole with the transformer from the adjoining hydroelectric power station - ZZZZZZZZ, dead.
And the lock doors from 16 to 17 ??? Open only ONE FOOT APART.
And the electrical power for miles around ??? NONE!!!
Lock 15 was out. Lock 14 was out. Lock 13 was out. All four associated hydroelectric power dams were out. And the entire city of Campbellford was out.
And Loon Feather???
The rain came down. Lightning and thunder all around. Translation: no one was stepping a foot onto the steel surrounding the locks, to fix or even look-see.
No computers without power. And, no absolute knowledge between the various lock masters as to where the problem had originated, and how long it would take to fix.
Tom, Pam, and Rick made haste to secure LF on the wall, then moved inside to wait out the storm. The good news was that they were at the top of the wall (top of the lower lock), so that they could step off the boat should the problem last for hours/days. Had LF been at the bottom of the lock with the lock doors shut, the crew might have been trapped until the sepage from the not-so-tightly-sealed lock doors brought them up to a step-off level.
Donna, in the meantime, enjoyed the drama at the lock master’s house. Word spred quickly by cell and land phone. But mostly, it was sit, wait, and take photos until the maintenance crews, aka Hydro 1, determined the where, what, and why.
A bit more than an hour later, the crews arrived.
“Our” electrical pole was the source. BUT, the storm was not the cause!!!
Seems that for weeks the lock master had been watching a pair of osprey start a nest at the top of the pole. Hmmmm. Thunder and Lighting: A very wild coincidence!
One cherry picker and 20 minutes later, Hydro 1 had picked the bits and branches off of the lines, and the 50 square miles of outage was ended!
No longer locked in, we locked through, and headed for our next locks with a locking story for each lock master along our way.
By late afternoon, however, we realized our time in 16/17 had pinched our arrival at lock #19, which would close at 7:00 p.m. Our mooring for the night was to be at Peterborough on the other side. If we did not make the lock, we would be forced to swing on an anchor in the next approaching storm.
Of course, much of the river area is a NO WAKE zone, with a traveling speed of 5 knots. Our timing needed to be pretty accurate.
And then we were there. Rick pulled to the starboard side of the canal, and idled while a large tour boat on a dinner cruise locked through.
It seemed forever for this lock to rise a mere 15 feet to let the tour boat out, and us in. But, it turned out that this was the last of the original-original locks, with limestone block walls, and of course the “sweeps”.
Then, just as the lock was about to open, came a roar from around the bend causing us all to grab a balance and hang on tight.
This was a boat, about our size, but new and powerful. And her captain had for miles been full throttle trying to make the lock before closing, sending wake up onto boats, and docks, and shorelines.
She screamed past us, but stopped close enough to us for them to hear our full force shouts. We had caught 5-6 foot waves off of her, rocking us violently, and almost sending us into the nearby docks.
Ellis Island was her name. Perhaps the owners’ last name was Ellis. Whatever. They not only violated almost every rule of no wake boating, they had made no observation of our presence. And they apparently intended to just barge ahead into the lock. We screamed louder!!! And, they finally reversed.
But, they had already sunk their ship. Not only had the lock master seen them come around the bend, six other cottagers had called in to report the offense. By the time Rick gave the master a succinct, “We need to talk”, their fate was sealed.
Both our boats were crammed into the tiny lock together, and no eyeballs met. They knew.
Three feet from the top of the lock, the lock master cornered the owners. They were not kids. They were our age, and their fancy boat said that they probably knew better.
The lock master was merciless. He chewed on them for a good 15 minutes, and assured them that the police would be waiting at Peterborough.
Seems they had not only tossed us around, they had been throwing up big wake for much of the river, and had literally crashed a boat up onto a dock.
Cute lock, though. Nice old limestone, with planter boxes full of petunias sitting right on the lock doors!
Rick nicely took on the captain as we left the lock. An appology was in order and he got one.
By the time we arrived at the marina, the word was out. We had our slip, and Ellis Island was given one a distance away. And we did not see them again.
Happy hour ensued, and the next storm came through. It was a day…
WILDLIFE SIGHTINGS: Osprey, loons, herons, chimney swifts, and tons of Canada Geese making their way south.
