We cast off this morning from Mechanicville headed for Ft. Edward. Another looper had left about 45 minutes before us and called back as we were heading for lock #3. The lock was having a problem with one of it's valves and he got slammed pretty hard into the wall despite having one engine 1/3 forward and the other in reverse as well as using his thruster. He hit so hard that it bent the fluke on his anchor. We entered the lock and grabbed the hanging ropes. Everything was fine until about halfway up when the water became very turbulent and the bow started swinging out towards the middle of the lock. I was pulling as hard as I could on the rope but to no avail. I brought it into the pilot house with me and tried using the thruster which just held our position but not returning us to the wall. Still holding the rope with one hand I started using the engine with bursts of power in forward and reverse. This finally got us back to the wall but scared the heck out of both of us as well as 2 smaller Canadian boats that were ahead of us in the lock. Thankfully the next 3 locks went fine.
The dam next to one lock.
There was a lot of dredging going on in the canal. We passed several large barges coming in the other direction. Beautiful flower growing on the banks.
Just before lock #7 we took the small channel that leads into the basin at Ft. Edward. A beautiful park setting with free dock, electricity and water.
We took a walk into the town and had dinner at the Anvil restaurant. It was an old blacksmith building and very good food.
We will stay another night here and just happened to notice the banner announcing the summer Wed. night free concerts right here in the yacht basin.
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