The locks in the Göta canal

We have now passed 18 of the 58 locks in the Göta canal, so we thought it is time to say a few words about them.
The canal seems to be a bit infamous for it's locks. When you look it up on Wikipedia, you'll see that it is nicknamed 'the divorce ditch' as locking is supposed to lead to heated arguments (and worse) between crew members.
Now we have passed numerous locks before coming here and we wondered what the problem was. Well, the unusual thing is that, when locking 'up', you cannot reach anything in the lock to tie up on. The only solution is to put a crew member ashore just before the lock, who then walks up the steps or slope next to the lock, holding the ropes, whilst another crew member drives the boat into the lock. That's unusual, but not really all that complicated. The next thing is that the water comes into the lock at quite a force, making it imperative that you keep the front line very tight.
As said above, we have now passed 18 locks, having Sean and Nikola with us has been a great help. Tomorrow, they leave us to return to London. Fortunately there is only ONE more 'up' lock to go and it has a lift of only 20cm as opposed between 2.5 and 2.9 m so far. So it should be a piece of cake. After that, we get 39 'down' locks, which is much easier. Needless to say it has really been quite straightforward, posed no problems and the canal has not lived up to its reputation, the relationships of us as well as Sean and Nikola still being intact!

Many of these locks are 'single chamber' ones, but we have had one flight of three stepped locks and a few 'double' ones. We are still going to have a set of 5 and the famous set of 7, but that is quite a bit later.
One thing we had not expected is that it is still so quiet in the canal! Of the 18 locks, we have been alone in 16 and had one companion in the other two.
The scenery is very nice, the weather has been good, we are having a great time!
Here are some pictures:

Location:Kanalvägen,Töreboda,Sweden