Years ago, when my dad came up to Seattle one time, we visited the ship lock at Ballard and he was fascinated by it. Even though it was hot and he was old, he stood there for almost an hour watching them load up the lock and then lower or raise the various craft. I was kind of done after the first few rounds, but not him. Now, though, I get it. I could have watched ships go through the Eisenhower Lock all day, every day, for the five days I was camping at Robert Moses State Park.
Oh, wait, that’s exactly what I did for five days!
Even though the visitor center is closed for rebuilding and you can only watch from the north side, with all kinds of buildings in the way, it was still totally awesome to watch these huge ships slowly slide into the lock and then be raised or lowered 42 feet in seven minutes flat. It never, ever got old.
Raising a Ship
Here’s the very first ship I saw, going upriver (towards the Great Lakes) so it was needing to be raised. The first photo is the ship at the height it comes in from downriver.
And seven minutes later, wow, what a difference! It actually moves so slowly that you don’t quite realize it’s moving unless you compare something like a ship window to the railing onshore.
The whole process of steaming very slowly into the lock, raising the ship, and then exiting the lock takes about 15 minutes. Half the fun is watching those huge ships — some over 220 meters long — slowly making their way in and out of the lock.
This ship, the Gaia Desgagnes, was 150 meters long, 22.8 meters wide, with a gross tonnage of 12,770. So just medium-sized as far as the lock traffic goes! Here’s one more video of it, leaving the lock, so you get a sense of just how big that ship is.
Lowering a Ship
The next day, I caught my first downriver traffic, and it was fun to see the ship slowly “disappear” into the lock. This was another medium-sized ship, the Florence Spirit: 137 meters x 21 meters, with a gross tonnage of 8935. To see it coming into the lock, check out this video.
Here’s the ship as it starts to be lowered…
And here it is, lowered all the way down and ready to proceed to the next lock. You can watch the whole thing on this video.
Finding Out the Schedule
The internet can be a wonderful thing when it comes to finding out ship schedules and tracking their movement toward the locks.
You can find out what traffic is going through a specific lock, like this link to Eisenhower Lock. Here’s a screen cap of some of the traffic going one of the days I was there (see the Florence Spirit!). The green arrows mean they are headed downriver (towards Quebec or the Atlantic), while the red arrows mean they are going upriver (towards the Great Lakes). The ETA can change, though, so I had this website on my phone where I could quickly check if anything had delayed or sped up, because they do both!
This interactive shipping traffic map from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic was really useful for seeing if the ships on the schedule were actually on schedule, or if they’d stopped at anchor somewhere. Here’s a screen cap of what the traffic looks like. Trust me, it’s so fun to click on little icons and see ship information, or zoom into a specific area.
From River Road
One of the big plusses of my campsite on River Road in the Long Saulte area of Robert Moses was that I could see and hear traffic at the norther approach to the Eisenhower Lock. Just like with racecars, there’s something about the sound of big diesel engines idling as they wait for the signal to approach. Any time I heard that, I would look outside to see if it was coming or going. This one, for example, was waiting to go into the lock late in the evening.
How close was the campground to the lock? Well, I could see this ship starting its approach…
…and make it to the north parking lot to watch it get lowered.
Want More? Here are all my lock videos on my YouTube channel. Yeah, I was kind of obsessed by these ships. Coolest vacay activity, hands down. Well, if you’re a nerd like me.
Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.
Oh, a lift lock would be cool to see. I’m thinking I need to trace all the locks from Montreal to the Great Lakes…
I would’ve been right there with you, Annie! I’ve never seen ships go through locks, so I would’ve been enthralled. Great post!
Hi Annie. My dad was the same and he went to the Trent Severn system near Peterborough, Ontario where they actually have a lift lock. He loved watching ships. We lived in Montreal and I remember going to to the port and sitting on those huge mooring bollards that they tie the ships too and watching ships come and go.