Maria Langer is a woman of many parts. She is a helicopter pilot, an adventure traveler, a professional yacht captain and a certified powerboat instructor.
She also a Great Looper who closed her circle on August 12 last summer in Chicago and is now writing a book about her Loop adventures. She’s also a long-time blogger.
Her Loop trip lasted 464 days and took her through 19 states and one Canadian Province. She covered 8,330 miles and burned 5,234 gallons of fuel. She spent 278 nights in marinas and the rest swinging on the anchor. All of this is quite a feat but more so because Maria made the trip singlehanded.
A recent blog is from Chapter One of her book and covers the business of dealing with the many locks you encounter along the Loop. For many boaters, locking up to the Great Lakes and then down the waterways heading south, will be a new experience.
Maria’s advice starts with the VHF radio with which you call ahead to the lock master at the next lock and give him of her your ETS, boat size and type and crew onboard.
On the Erie Canal and the Trent Severn, where there are many locks in a row, the lockmasters often will let their compatriots know what to expect with the next batch of boats. But they don’t always do this.
When you arrive at the lock, you will see red and green lights. Red means stop and wait. Green means you can enter the lock and make the boat fast inside.
On entering the lock, Marias notes, “I should mention here that if the light is green and the gates are open as you approach, slow down before you reach the lock chamber and any walls leading up to it. Trust me: you don’t want to create wake that will follow you into the lock.”
Her blog is full of such useful, practical advice and will be both a good source of loop and canal savvy and a fun way to get a feel for what life on the Loop is really like.
