May 22 – How a Lock Works

Ilion Marina and RV Park

We traveled 44 miles, locked up 104’ in six locks and pumped 200 gallons of diesel...in the rain today. The countryside was beautiful, but not a good day for photography, so I thought I'd use today's blog to explain how a lock works for those who might not understand or can’t quite picture it in their mind. 

A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats between stretches of water of different levels on a river or canal. The difference in elevation from the Hudson River to Ithaca on Cayuga Lake is 383’; in order for us to get there we will go through 25 locks. The largest lift at one time was in lock 17 today…40’.

A boat enters a fixed chamber of the lock where it can be raised or lowered to meet the next section of the river or canal. Water flows into and out of the lock through underground plumbing by the force of gravity; there are no pumps involved in the process. That means in order to climb hills there has to be a natural supply of water from either a lake or a river above the lock. The supply has to be enough to work the locks during dry summers and periods of high traffic when the lock is cycled more frequently. Finding these sources was one of the key challenges of the early surveyors of the Erie's route across New York State.

You can see how far a boat has to be raised or lowered to get to the next part of the river. In this picture a boat is entering on the high side, the gates will close behind it and the water will be released until the boat is at the lower level. Then the front gates will open and the boat will move on...it's like a water elevator.

 Here a boat is entering the lock chamber

This picture shows the water entering the lock chamber 

This is a picture of the top of a lock with water at the higher level 

In a flight of locks, like this picture shows, a boat moves from one lock chamber into the next. This enables a boat to move up or down a hill.

Information boards like this one are at each lock 

Here is a simple video of how a lock works

Aug. 17-20 Cayuga Lake Vacation

"The Lake....where families go to make memories." -Author Unknown

We spent this year's last family lake vacation at a nice house just south of Seneca Falls on Cayuga Lake. The weather was beautiful, but a bit too windy to spend time on the boat riding on the raft...no problem we found other things to do. We spent our first full day taking the boat through part of the Cayuga–Seneca Canal. This part of the New York canal system connects the Erie Canal to Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake. It was built in 1818. Since we were already in Cayuga Lake we took everyone through C2 and C3 that leads to the town of Seneca Falls. These locks are a set of locks called a staircase or flight. We were lifted up a total of 49' from the Seneca River to Van Cleef Lake. Check out this old blog post to see how a lock works. We wandered around town a little and then had lunch before we headed back to the house.

The house

This house had a great movie and game room above the garage. The perfect place for a family movie night.

The kids get to the marina around lunch each time we rent a house. So we have a little time to fill before we can check in. This time we had lunch on the boat then rode bikes along the trails by the marina and played in the park.

After playing we stopped at the Sheldrake Point Winery to enjoy a little wine and a beautiful day.

We spent a lot of time at the house just hanging out together, relaxing, playing games, eating and celebrating Hattie's 4th birthday.

The view from the front porch was nice in the evening and in the morning.

On our way to Seneca Falls.

These boards are at each lock to inform boaters of their elevation and how far it is to the next lock.

Heading into lock C2. It lifted us up 24.5'.

Once inside we put a line around a cable so we could stay close to the side of the lock.

Once inside and ready the Lock Master closes the door and the water begins to fill the lock.

Going up!

Once we were through the two locks we were in Van Cleef Lake and right in the heart of Seneca Falls.

Everyone had a great time on the way home.

Graham was the captain most of the way back.

Our second full day was beautiful...but very windy. Kyle and Graham explored in the kayaks before we tried to have fun on the runabout. It was just too rough, so we played at home.

The waterfront was pretty and we had plenty of room to play, but it wasn't very nice for swimming. Luckily the weather was cool and we really didn't want to swim. 

Our traditional last night fire and s'mores. It's our way of saying goodbye to summer.