Hit the Welland Canal dock at 9 am (no, not literally!) and picked up the batphone to the canal control centre to find out when we could start our transit.. The guy on the other end obviously was not having a good day as he was not very helpful at all. So, we waited by the VHF for further instructions.. Luckily we only had to wait approx. 1 hour before we got the greenlight to head downstream to the first lift bridge.

The aforementioned canal bible gave very explicit information on the various signs signals and lights in the canals to communicate what the boat operator is supposed to do and when. The only trouble was, these guys didn't always follow their own rules and they weren't real big on communicating on the VHF with us so this was a bit intimidating until we got the hang of things. This was a stark contrast to the lock staff in the Trent Canal.

The canal is primarily for commercial traffic so pleasure boats get fit into the procession when a spot opens up. The locks are huge and able to fit freighters over 700' in length and 50+' in width, so our boat looked like a cork in a bath tub. It bobbed around like one too when the lock doors opened and the current started. this made for a few "exciting" tie ups at the wall within the some of the locks. All told, it took us 10 hours but we were extremely happy to get back into Lake Ontario at the end of the day! We're almost home!