After a quiet night by Lock 32, we needed to be ready by 9:30 when Alan was coming. We ended up being a bit slow, and Sarah was just taking Andrea and the pups for a walk when he arrived. Alan handed us the morning paper and then had a look at the water level. He was not overjoyed. His concern was with getting us over the threshold and into the lock. He said, "we'll fill the lock, and then hope that the water is there." Water was coming down from the next lock up, and hopefully filling this lock wouldn't lower the water level too much.
Alan opened the land gates and filled the lock quickly. When we had the lock gates open, he had a look at the water and pointed out where he wanted the level to be in order to be confident we would get through. It wasn't up to that point.
Sarah arrived back and took the rest of the pack to sit on the foredeck. The idea being that weighing down the bow will lift the stern a small bit. Alan and I proceeded to pull the boat into the lock. The boat was almost entirely in and I was about to breath a sigh of relief when there was a small scrape (it was much less than we have experience at other points on the canal) and then we were clear. We made it! Now we were on to the next challenge: the following level was also quite low.
Alan's plan was to get us to the bottom of the lock and then open all the gates to wash us out. When we were at the bottom (and had chatted with him for another 10 minutes before the gates were opened -- did I mention that he is chatty?), he opened the lock and told us to start the engine. I thought he would open all the sluices and gates to flood us out, but he told us to start motoring. We had only moved about 10 feet when we ran aground. When he opened up the flow, we could feel the boat being lifted. With the engine in idle, we were soon pushed out of the lock.
Alan opens the land gates and all the sluices to release a wall of water, washing us out of the lock.
So, now we were riding a wave of water which was raising the water level by several inches. I decided to let it precede us somewhat and turned off the engine. I used the bow thruster on occasion to keep us from turning too much, but otherwise we just floated along. It was so quiet an pleasant.
After about half an hour, I could see the current slowing a bit. The initial wave had clearly gone the length of the level and rebounded. Now we needed the engine again.
Judge's Bridge shortly before lock 33. The next morning we walked back to the bridge and discovered a huge blackberry patch. We gorged ourselves on blackberries.
We motored slowly along and called Alan when we had the lock in sight. Lock 33 was an impressive double lock. We tied up at the jetty and I chatted with some of the locals while we waited for Alan. Again he was amazing and did all the work with the lock. When we were at the bottom, he again chatted with me for about 20 minutes before moving to open the lock for us to exit.
Upon our exit, we pulled up to the jetty and invited Alan for tea. He had coffee with him, but joined us and Sarah served a cheese and fruit platter. We talked for over an hour (well, mostly listened), getting the history of all things canal-related.
After Alan left, we decided to go for a bit of a walk, but it was really sunny and hot (don't believe what they say about Ireland being rainy: that is just propaganda to keep it from getting overcrowded!) We walked ahead a short distance, trying to keep to the shade as much as possible.
A bit later we walked over to the river Brosna, which flows parallel to the canal here. We had seen the bridge on our way in.
I’ve never had to “wash “ out of a lock. You’ve done something that I’ve never done,
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