Monday, Aug 16: Port Colborne, Ontario

After having spent 2 days at Port Dover, it was time to move on. The next port of interest was Port Colborne - the southern end of the Welland Canal (to bypass Niagara Falls). 23 miles and 8 locks so having traveled through the canal in 1999 with our 32' Trojan, we had no desire to do that again! Fun once but not twice :-). The locks are large enough to accommodate the large lake freighters so like 750 feel long and 90 feet wide!

Saw several large freight carriers go through the locks - there was a very nice bike path along the canal. Steve did get somewhat carried away riding though. His rear wheel bearing on the bike bit the dust. Seems you have to take these apart every once in a while and grease them! Who knew! So off he went on my bike with his wheel tied to his backpack to the bike store where he was able to purchase a new wheel. The person at the store was nice enough to do this as he waited.

Of course we had other issues: our computer died and couldn't fix itself. Again we lucked out and found a guy that saved most of what was on the hard drive and restored Windows Vista. Lost a few files but nothing major. Think it may be time for a new computer??

And a disaster avoided: we were leaving about 1 pm headed for Buffalo when the engine just didn't sound right (after listening to it for days on end you can just kind of tell). No water coming out of the exhaust! This is a bad thing as the engine is a closed cooling system just like a car (complete with antifreeze). Water from the lake circulates around the engine to keep the antifreeze at the appropriate temperature and is then exhausted back into the lake. So without water from the lake - the engine overheats, etc. We quickly went back to the nearest dock to investigate.

Upon checking the water intake (located on the bottom of the boat but accessible in the engine compartment), Steve found a very nice assortment of seaweed which had gotten sucked up into the intake as we left our dock in the morning. After about 15 minutes of digging with screwdrivers, copper wire and running the engine, we were able to clear it and head on out. We were very happy to have found the problem prior to getting out on the lake and then trying to deal with an overheated engine!