Welland Canal Lock 1

The Welland Canal: use the pleasure craft dock on the east wall before lock #1. You pay a $200 fee for a one way trip. See the St Lawrence seaway web site for reservations/payment and info. You must have 3 persons on board going upbound but you only need 2 going downbound. Filling the locks while you go upbound creates a lot of turbulence. It can be tough to hold on to your vessel at times. You can hire a third person for about $300. We did! He was experienced and gave good advice. Contact St Catherines Marina for some contacts. Pleasure craft are low priority. You will sit on a wall throughout the canal and wait for commercial traffic to clear. We were about to enter a lock, a freighter was notified we'd be exiting soon, but instead he requested our group be forced to wait on the wall until he entered the lock and traversed it. Because you are low priority, it takes about 12 hours to traverse the entire canal. You spend a lot of time waiting on walls for the big guys to pass.