Left early in the morning with 4 locks to maneuver. They were dredging on the Hudson in some areas and speed was reduced to
5MPH. Went through the last lock and was handed a bouquet of white peonies by the lock master. What a nice surprise! We breezed through all of the locks and we were the only boat in the locks and never had to wait. We started to ease pass a barge that was taking up most of the of the channel, our depth gage read 14ft and then all of a sudden the depth alarm went off and we were in 4 ft. of water!!! Ken quickly shut down the boat, and we drifted to 8 feet. Wow, close call! Ken started the engines and BAM back to 4 feet alarm screaming and whatever we hit, bucked Loop Dreams to the port side. We both feared that we knocked a hole in the boat! Immediately the boat started to quiver and we knew the props were bent. A sick feeling came over both of us.
Loop Dreams limped into Fort Edwards and Ken eased to the dock wall. I caught a ladder and tied the stern and climbed up to the dock to pull a mid line and secured Loop Dreams.
We were in a remote area but Ken found a scuba diver that agreed to meet us early Friday morning to pull the props. This was not his
line of work, he was a scuba diving instructor, but said he had pulled props off a few boats. We did not have a choice.
Friday morning at 8AM two diver showed up and after 5 hours of fighting the current, they had both of the props off. Earlier I picked up a rental car and we had Precision Propel in Neubrugh, NY graciously agreed to stay late Friday evening to repair our props. They were a 2 1/2 hour drive away. This drive took us back close to where we were docked two weeks ago! Precision Propel saved the day! However, our pocket book was crying.
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Barges dredging the canal |
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