As lunchtime slinked up on us, we tightened the last shackle and sat in comfortable companionship, sipping cool beers. Our new friends, work colleagues, and fellow travellers gave credit to Noel: his planning and forethought made us look like professionals. Cruisers are a wonderful breed; it was the most inclusive club we’d belonged to.
We approached our first lock in the New York Canal system (the Erie Canal). Casting our minds back to our France experience, when we could not figure out whether the lock doors are open or closed, we were pleased that the locks here were clearer and cleaner. In France, the lock doors were a lovely shade of black to match the decor within. Feeling more at ease in the States, we tentatively coaxed
Mariah
into the dungeon. Our full keel meant little steerage when we slowed down, with powerful currents carrying us along it made somewhat of a stressful situation. The tumultuous locks in France taught us that you could not have enough fenders. So,
Mariah
looked like an inflatable boat, covered completely in plastic and timber boards. The huge door ground shut, and the water started to rise. The water swirled and bubbled; the chamber creaked, groaned, and we stared up at the green slimy walls. The lock master suggested that we should remove a few of the planks of wood that rested on the fenders, ‘As they’ll just get in the way.’ Our France experience suggested that they may not be enough. But after rising up hundreds of metres and descending back down again through a plethora of locks of varying heights, we realised the US lock designers knew what they were doing. The locks were mild, painless, and really quiet enjoyable. It was astonishing to think we were hill climbing on our boat.
At either side of the locks, or in an accommodating town, free, clean tie-up places were provided. It was here that we met locals interested in our voyage. I interviewed people for my writing, and they, in turn, interviewed us for their local papers. We were the furthest travelled, foreign sailing boat most people had seen, and we felt a little humbled at all the attention we received.
I had begun to see some of my sailing articles published: mostly destination pieces and a few technical articles. It had taken a long time and a lot of work and editing, but at last I was starting to fulfil my dream of earning some money while doing what I love. The fact I was writing about a subject, that not long ago I knew nothing of, gave me a remarkable sense of achievement.
Each day, as the northern evening arrived and the unique light to these latitudes softened the view, the mouth-watering smell of BBQs smothered the fragrance of freshly cut grass. For us, it meant that it was time to stop for the night, to relax and study the charts for the next day and our trip across the border to Canada.
The Great Lakes are just that – great, vast expanses of water that are really inland seas. We were unsure what to expect when entering Canada. We knew that they charged for locking through and for mooring up at the locks. (However, if you were over seventy-seven years of age and were operating a vessel under eighteen feet, you got a free lockage pass!). The pilot book explained that leaving the main channel for anchoring could be dangerous with shoaling and debris. Preferring to anchor, we decided to take a gamble and cautiously picked our way off the channel and found that we had not one problem. In fact, we had no need to hand over any of our hard earned cash to Canadian officials for moorings throughout the entire trip through Canada.
There were alternative routes to choose from in order to traverse The Great Loop. The Great Lakes beckoned with an ideal opportunity for some good sailing. However, with time and budget against us, our mast stayed prone. Warily, we approached open water. Staggered at the might of the lakes, the inland seas, we selected our weather judiciously. The shallow, lighter fresh water allowed hefty, cube like waves to build swiftly in a modest breeze.
The air smelt fresh here, like home; it was inviting with the promise of adventure. Not once did we tire of the endless pink and black glimmering rock formations that lined our pathway through the shimmering water. Here, inventive builders pieced together esoteric houses on rocks that were scattered throughout the canals and hidden in picture book bays, nestled in with their own jetty. It left us wondering which movie star may hide there. We made plans to return someday.
It was here that we experienced what it would be like to drive through treacle. With numerous places to anchor, we guided
Mariah
from the main channel and suddenly she turned into a languid lump. Suspiciously, we peered over the side to see that a bushy weed, just visible under the surface, had
Mariah
in its clutches. Little by little, we extracted ourselves from the embracing triffid, back to the main channel. It was like working our way through a syrupy paste. This, thankfully, was a one off phenomenon.
Night after night, alone, we revelled in the serenity, our contentedness. Looking east from the partly protected bay, the horizon was a tiny speck. From our deserted surrounding we could see for miles. Perhaps the world had ended and no one told us.
Ashore, we were acutely aware that this was bear, snake, and spider country. Stepping into the vibrant forest, we raised our voices to scare off any prowling bears.
‘What’s your plan if we’re confronted by a bear? I asked.
‘If a large grizzly approached me, I plan to play dead.’
‘Good,’ I said, ‘I intend to look it in the eye and slowly back off.’ I felt more at ease. ‘If my plan fails, at least the bear would deal with you first, and have a hearty meal before attacking me!’
We collected wood for our modest potbelly stove that kept us snug on board. The nights were becoming chilly, but the clear sparkle of the water still beckoned us in each day. On the shore, the pink, blue, and quartz stones were like jewels, each one I lifted for a closer inspection made a creepy, long-legged spider skitter in one direction, while I scurried in another. Some of the rock formations stirred our imaginations; they were reportedly over one hundred million years old. I wondered what had trodden here before us. If only they could whisper their secrets.
As we gathered information on the Peterborough Hydraulic Lock, a stranger took great pleasure enlightening us that farther along the Trent Severn the depth was down to three feet. With our five feet draft, this caused some anxious creasing of the crew’s foreheads.
‘The lock-keepers will tell you about it, but everyone is having problems,’ he expounded. But the fearless
Mariah
carried on in the face of adversity, knowing that somewhere along the line, someone would tell us what to do. Well, at least we hoped they would. Twice we bumped our bottom; there was no damage and no water less than five feet.
The locals we met along the Trent Severn Waterways were intrigued with our travels.
‘You sailed all that way in
that
boat?’ they’d say with what seemed to me unnecessary emphasis on ‘that’.
But
Mariah
had her own exclusive claims to fame. In England, she’d been perched on the highest hill in Hertfordshire and sped along the M25 motorway; now we were going to put her in a large bath tub that lifts into the air and then on a railway track, quite a feat for an ocean going vessel. Canada has two unique systems aside from the usual locks. The first is a Lift Lock. We drove into a large bathtub, and a door rises out of the depths behind us to secure us in. Another boat at the top does the same, and his weight pushed water from somewhere below him into somewhere below us. He came down, while we went up. Underneath us both was a large, hopefully strong, hydraulic ram. The ride was speedy and smooth. Peering over a twenty metre ledge in a boat was bizarre.
The second unique system is the Marine Railway or The Big Chute. For economic reasons and as a barrier to prevent migration of the parasitic sea lamprey, a huge one hundred tonne open carriage was built over granite that separates converging waterways. Riding on twin tracks, it lifts boats out of the water, over the rock, to off load them into the river on the other side.
Mariah
, held by slings, was over seventeen metres high, looking out over a sheer drop of hard rock. As she rattled in the air, our hearts rattled to the same rhythm.
Aside from the fairground rides through Canada, the scenery was by far the most breathtaking we had seen anywhere in the world. In the translucent water, lilies did a Mexican wave in our soft wake, and sentinel silver birches stood tall on pink granite next to proud pines that mixed within a surplus of greens, tinged with an autumn flush. Each night, swinging on our three-hundred-and-sixty degree panorama, we savoured the views like a fine wine, trying to taste, absorb, and never forget.
Bidding a sad farewell to the dramatic Canadian scenery, we eased our way back into the States and picked our time to go south along Michigan Lake.
While the wind gathered spirit, Penguin Jack II (our dinghy) had been surfing behind us and trying to overtake
Mariah
, skewering violently. Ropes snatched for the last time and yanked loose the towing line. We shifted
Mariah
around to search for an eight-foot boat in a three hundred mile long lake. Fortunately, PJ’s bright green paint caught our eye, and we fought the growing waves to salvage the wayward dinghy. Having been born in a brothel, PJ was clearly independent and lacking in any manners. The white-knuckle ride that was our boat made the retrieval challenging. Eventually, with skilful boat manoeuvres and ungraceful lurching, we reclaimed our rebellious dinghy. Abruptly, the winds gathered momentum with the fresh water and heaved the waves higher
,
the clatter of shifting equipment, plates, and books made me cringe. Noel gasped through the stinging rain to re-tie the prone mast that was trying to break free. Noel relied on his flexing knees, his earned balance, and a bit of luck while he weaved a spider’s nest of nautical knots to secure the heavy lump of timber.
At last, rocking and rolling into a safe anchorage, we turned to the task of mucking-out the boat. Again, we were surprised and caught off guard (as we were in France) at how changing the dynamics of the boat, by dropping the mast, so radically changes its performance.
After a couple of moon-lit dashes along Lake Michigan, we arrived in Chicago at 2 am on the first day in September. The towering, opalescent city lights welcomed us into its still bay. The next morning, bureaucrats turned us away from the shore. We could not step onto land from the anchorage area; we had to go into a marina. As budget conscious cruisers, we took advantage of being dumb foreigners and sweet-talked the marine police into allowing us to dock at their private jetty, while we explored Chicago’s sights and did the paperwork.
Actually, the best way to see Chicago is via boat, puttering through both its adolescent and mature, tall buildings, watching the rat race scurry by. This was the beginning of an entirely new adventure, heading south in mid-west America.
From Chicago, there are two routes to take; we opted for the Sanitary and Ship Canal that offered superior scenery. This leads to the Illinois River. Not too far into the Canal there was Barge City, my words for a place where there were two hundred foot long barges parked bow to stern, as far as the eye could see; the channel between left just inches leeway for any traffic.
As I squinted through our tatty binoculars, I was convinced a barge was heading our way, and I could not see a clear way ahead. With little time, we squeezed into a small gap, dwarfed by huge, rusted monsters. From behind the wall of barges around us, a monstrosity glided past. This thing, with the tug pushing it along was over a quarter of a mile long and one hundred feet wide! We were a little awe struck at the captain’s deft handling. We waited until four of these monsters had gone by and slowly poked out our nose. After a mile, we caught up with yet another behemoth. Politely, we asked if we could overtake (knowing the mile marker you were at was a necessity at all times). We had to wait for the captain’s permission to pass and obey his requests. We finally grasped his southern drawl after many whispers of ‘what d’he say?’ He gave the signal, so we upped the revs and started overtaking a boat over 1200 feet long, that’s seventeen barges plus the pushing tow boat! Halfway alongside, we saw an approaching barge was static, tied to a bank, but we would not fit the three of us alongside, so the throttle received an extra shove. With our mind taking great leaps from,
yes, we’ll make it
to no,
we won’t
, and the throttle receiving the abuse that matched our thoughts, we slipped through just before we created a unique type of boat concertina.
We had been chatting about it for months, and with a giddy blend of trepidation and anticipation, we crossed the threshold onto the famous Mississippi River. We had only heard negative experiences about this part of the trip, which heightened the emotions. This corridor of commerce runs, in total, for over seventeen hundred miles from Minneapolis, MN to New Orleans, LA. We traversed just two-hundred-and-fifty miles of this fast flowing, muddy water, where often you’d see historic paddle-wheel boats gliding past. The current was with us, but running fast, giving us an extra three knots; good for speed, bad for mistakes.
There was little information available for this section, so for the first night we had to find our own anchorage. Tip-toeing off the channel (the charts had no depths), we found enough room to anchor. With the new trip line tied securely onto our anchor with a floating fender, I dropped the anchor and miraculously the knot unravelled. I watched in wonder as our fender took off on its own.
Without thought, Noel and I grappled to fix the outboard onto the dinghy and I jumped in, feeling a bit like Jane Bond on a mission to rescue. We had anchored behind a submerged wall (a wing dam) which gave us a little reprieve from the dominant current; however the fender had, by this time, built up some speed. Racing towards it in the dinghy, I caught up with the fender and scooped it up in a heroic fashion, I turned just before reaching the unforgiving current of the main channel. I revved the two horse-power outboard hard, the engine coughed, and I prayed. Somewhat late, my mind decided to offer some thought. If I were caught in the current, in the main channel, our small outboard would not have coped; I’d have been whisked off down the Mississippi with only PJ for company. I upped the revs more and was shaking by the time I reached
Mariah
. What a foolish thing to do, risk my life for an old fender!