Mahi Mahi- Sun Jun 29; The Welland Canal (Part-1)

The time has finally come, today we will be traveling “TO” the famous Welland Canal (Part-1), and tomorrow we will be traveling “THRU” the Welland Canal (Part-2).

Today’s post will be about – how to prep for going thru the Canal & all the things you have to do and know for a successful trip thru the Canal.

The first thing you need to do is read & study – St Lawrence/Welland Things to Know

Here is an outline for the basic process

1. Sign up online to become a customer of the St Lawrence/ Welland System. Click Link

2. Pay the Pleasure Boat Welland Canal Fee Online= $200

3. Make your Reservation to transit the canal before 7am on day of transit. You can make your reservation months in advance if you are sure of your date (you can edit your date after the reservation). If you wait too close to your desired date, you could be “locked-out”. We made our reservation 2 days before our planned arrival, there is a calendar screen to pick available dates for Upbound & Downbound transit.

4. The transit direction thru the canal is titled – UPBOUND or DOWNBOUND. This was a bit confusing at first, because we thought that Lake Ontario to Lake Erie would be downbound. Not True – Upbound/Downbound refers to Up/Down in Elevation/WaterLevel, not location. Our Port Weller (Lake Ontario) to Port Colbourne (Lake Erie) transition is Going Up in elevation, thus we are UPBOUND. Pleasure Boat Upbound Passages are only allowed thru the canal on ; Mon, Wed, Fridays. Downbound on Tu,Thu,Sat. I’m not sure about Sunday, it original looked like you could do an Upbound, but the calendar was not open for us.

5. On the day of transit (tomorrow/ Monday for the Mahi), we must Check-In at the Port Weller Pleasure Craft Small Boat Dock BEFORE 9am (between 7:00 & 8:30am). Check-in to the “Seaway Control Center” ; VHF= ch 14 or Phone= 289-690-43445.

6. The 1st Lock begins @ 9am and the canal system list the transit time thru the 7 Locks as a 12 hour process (ugh) !!!

7. Lights inside the Locks (3); Solid Red = do not pass the L/A sign (lock authorization). Flashing Red = continue, pass well be granted soon, & Green = Enter the Lock

8. Crew – A minimum of 3 people are required to transit the locks (captain, bow line, stern line). You must watch the line handler for signs on where to go in the Lock, your assigned position. The Lock Handler will use finger and arm signals to direct you where to go. There are 3 signals; Finger– go to wall pointed to by the Lock Handler. Shoulder Tap – go to boat pointed to and raft off of them. Shoulder Tap & Finger– go to a specific boat & in a speficic row & raft off of them.

9. Starboard or Port Tie – Locks #1 & #2 are Starboard Tie Locks. Locks #3-#7 are Port Tie Locks, Locks #8 is a Starboard Tie, if necessary ( usually #8 is a drive thru, it’s only a1 ft Lock).

10. Other Notes; Max Speed = 7mph (6kt), the entire canal is 27 miles long. The water level rise is (lift) = 326ft.

Welland Canal Trivia

1. The Canal is 27 miles long
2. Max vessel size = 740ft x 78ft
3. Max Draft = 26ft (humm)
4. 8 Locks, 7 + 1 potential drive thru
5. Each lift will be 43-49ft
6. Construction = 1824-1833
7. It is very close to Niagra Falls
8. Lake Erie is 326ft higher than Ontario
9. There is a 116ft bridge hight limit
10. It takes commercial ships 12 hours to transit the canal.

Surprizingly, only about 3,000 ships use the Welland Canal each year (8-10 per day) They carry around 40,000,000 tons of goods. The canal played a big role in the growth of Toronto. It allowed goods from Great Lakes cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago to reach the port of Montreal or Quebec City. From there, goods could be shipped all over the world. The Welland Canal became more important than other canals in the area, like the Erie Canal, because it offered a shorter path to Lake Erie.

So this is what all of our Welland Canal research says, we’ll find out tomorrow what really happens 🙄. Stay tuned for our next post – Welland Canal Part -2 tomorrow night.

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After our 3 hour voyage today, we arrived at the St Catherine’s Marina at Port Heller (Lake Ontario). Unfortunately we had 2 issues; 1) The water level at St Catherine’s was very shallow, we were kicking up mud, so we decided to bail out. There was an anchorage very close by. You can see in the screen dump – the Mahi in the Red Arrow, the Welland Canal entrance along the LHS of the screen, and St Catharine’s Marina in the lower right.

The next order of business was to clear customs, by calling 1-800-CAN-PASS. But ops, it didn’t work. After a few head scratching moments, I figured out that I needed to call 1-888-CAN-PASS 😃. Then more fun. The phone reception was sketchy – I got 10 minutes into the call with customs agent #1 and the line went dead. I waited 15 minutes for a call-back, but alas there was no call-back. So I called back again to agent #2 and repeated the process of names, passport numbers, boat registration, etc. This time all was good.

To check into Canadian Customs you need to have ready; 1) Passport Numbers, 2) How Long you will be in Canada, 3) Your Purpose for visiting Canada, 4) Your Vessel Documentation Number, 5) Your Arrival Port, 6) Your departing Port, 6) Alcohol & Fire Arms declarations.

So it’s about 2pm on Sunday June 29th, all the prep work is done, it’s time to go swimming. Our little anchorage is quite nice & the Lake Ontario water is very pretty, but not as pretty as The Exuma Islands, two years ago with Jerry and Deena.

Here is some video of our anchorage.

Thanks all for today folks. Wish us “Luck” in the Welland Canal tomorrow. Our next post will be from Lake Erie, after we complete the WC.

Thanks for reading,

Mike, Deena, and Jerry