We continued down the river with two locks today. Along the way we saw some Duck Blinds, must not be in season because we saw a lot of ducks.
What was supposed to be a short day tuned into a long frustrating day.
The first lock was about a 30 minute wait, at the second lock we were told they would take us down after an approaching tow.
Here is what I sent to the Corp of Engineers
Dear Mr. Marshall,
Thank you for responding to my inquiry about the feedback I submitted about the Marseilles Lock. Since you have not been able to locate my submittal I will explain our experience so you can pass it on to the appropriate person(s).
Our experience at the Marseilles Lock on Sunday 9-23-2012 was truly exasperating. It was our worst experience with a Lock having gone through over 100 in the last 5 month. The lock personnel did not communicate and were just plain rude.
We arrived at about 1:30 and were told that after the next tow we would get locked down. The next tow “Pat White “arrived within a half hour and was asked to call in on the telephone when he called in on the radio. The tow stopped and tied up to the wall and about 20 minutes later got a call on the radio that the lock was ready.
At 4 o’clock we called on the radio and asked when we could expect to get locked through. The answer we got was “I don’t know we are doing some maintenance on the lock”. We called back and explained we were trying to get to a dock for night and asked “did we need to plan on spending the night?”
We never got a reply, we could see workers moving off the gate and at approximately 4:45 we got a horn to enter. We were met at a floating bollard but NEVER spoken to. About 15 minutes later we were out of the lock.
During this entire time we were the only boat waiting to go through the lock. Is it normal procedure to only hold recreational traffic while maintenance is performed? Had we been told about the maintenance when we arrived we would have likely gone back a few miles to a different location for the evening.
I don’t know if you ever found my original “feedback” submitted on your website. I appreciate that you responded quickly to my direct email inquiring when I would hear back from my feedback submittal. I would suggest that the “feedback” on your website be modified so that the sender immediately gets a response by email with a copy of their feedback and contact information.
I look forward to a response to this email.
Sincerely Yours
Stephen Jensen
We got to Ottawa about 5:30 and just tied up without visiting the town.
