Day 1 of 8: Viking Great Lakes Cruise

It’s time for a new travel blog. Today we started the 8-day Viking cruise “Niagara and the Great Lakes” on the Viking Octantis. You may recall that this is the same expedition ship we took to Antarctica in January on its maiden voyage. During the northern hemisphere’s summer months, Octantis cruises the five Great Lakes. Here is the map of our voyage, showing the various stops along the way.

We left Detroit this morning on a small Air Canada jet for the ~35-minute flight to Toronto. 

Detroit River and City Skyline -- we'll pass through here in 3 days:

GM Technical Center in Warren from ~10,000 feet

In Toronto, we were met by Viking agents in the airport and transferred to the Port of Toronto to board Octantis. Kudos to Canadian Customs and to Viking for efficient, courteous transfers and boarding procedures – we left Detroit Metro Airport at 11:00 am and were settled into Octantis in time to catch a late lunch and then re-acquaint ourselves with the ship before dinner.

Viking Octantis is small by cruise ship standards, with just 378 passengers, but a large vessel for the Great Lakes, designed to just fit through the locks, which I'll cover shortly. Here's a stock photo of Octantis with the Toronto skyline:

For dinner, we chose our favorite -- sushi:

After dinner, Octantis departed the Port of Toronto, and we watched the sunset over the Toronto skyline.

Heading south across Lake Ontario, we arrived at the entrance to the Welland Canal about three hours later. It takes a vessel about 11 hours to cross the Welland canal from end to end, passing through eight locks. The Welland Canal is the waterway linking Lake Ontario with Lake Erie. It is a key section of the Great Lakes Waterway and St. Lawrence Waterway, providing ships passage between the two Great Lakes while bypassing Niagara Falls. The canal serves about 3,000 ships annually. The current canal, opened in 1932, is the fourth one built in this general location and is in use from late March to December. 

We arrived at Lock 1 just before midnight. It was amazing to look out our window and see the wall of the lock just 1-2 inches away from the ship. We walked out on deck to get a good look at the first lock passage.

Crew inspecting the gap on each side of the ship:

Keith supervising our lock 1 passage:

Starting to rise in the lock:

Lock 1 lift completed; opening the lock gates:

Passing by the roadway drawbridge:

More on the Welland Canal tomorrow. We will wake early to view locks 5 through 8, and then take an excursion to Niagara Falls.