Just before sunrise a silhouette on the eastern skyline warned of an obstacle in our passage upstream. We worked our way carefully towards the yawning maw of a man-made canyon guarded by the superstructure of a malevolent guillotine gate. The inlet appeared minute but first impressions are often misleading. Contoured to perfectly fit four barges and their tug, the chambers of the locks on the lower Columbia and Snake Rivers are all the same in length and width.
It was hard to fathom exactly how we compared for as we had just discovered our perception of size was terribly distorted. The desire for an answer and an understanding bounced in the stratosphere throughout the day and with the approach of sunset came a perfect portrait of proportions.
McNary Lock presented a different face with its mitre style gates at both upstream and downstream ends but inside the holding pen looked the same. All that differed initially was our position.
Instead of looping our lines around a bollard mid-way along the southern side, we inched closer and closer to the seventy-five foot tall concrete and steel obstacle on the upstream end. As a misty cascade from the gate above drifted across the front deck, our attention was diverted by what was happening off the stern and along our port side. We were surrounded! A tug had expertly maneuvered three barges into place. The tug and two grain carriers effectively filled the gap behind. Beside us a third barge filled most of the remaining space. The dimensions of the lock: a tug, three barges and the Sea Bird, with a little room to spare.
