July 13, 2011 Wednesday
Left Sugarloaf Marina this morning at 0430 hrs and moved over to the waiting dock and ticket purchase booth in the city of Port Colborne which is about a mile or so away. We made fast to the waiting dock and I went and purchased a ticket for the 8 locks: $200. After one purchases the ticket there is a phone in the booth that you pick up and report in to the Welland Seaway Control letting them know that you are ready to transit. I then becomes a waiting game to see how much commercial traffic is either Downbound (Port Colborne to Lake Ontario) or Upbound (Lake Ontario to Port Colborne). Pleasure craft must wait and are secondary to the commercial traffic. Today we waited until 1100 hrs to get the "go ahead".
After going thru Lock #8 and heading for Lock #7, we got an alarm on the instrument panel that the water temperature was over alarm limits. By reducing RPMs I was barely able to keep it going. Stopped engine and went to the Raw Water Cooler strainer and found that it was clean but the thru hull wasn't delivering enough outside water. I used a West Marine can Air Horn to force compressed air down the intake thru hull and got a little more water but not enough to continue. Called Seaway control and reported problem and requested to return thru lock #8. This is dicey as you have to wait for commercial traffic. In the end, after great amounts of stress and tie up to wier wall, we managed to get permission to pro-cede back thru Lock #8. Got the number of a diver and made arrangements to have him come to Sugarloaf Marina for an inspection. End result: Intake water valve was blocked up with algae and weeds. He cleaned it up with a coat hanger and compressed air. Also had him inspect the keel for the rock we hit at Port Austin: not significant damage but there is a "ding" and some fiberglass missing on the lead keel.
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