“You know, Jerry, I believe you’re right.”
“But, Sandy, I’m not joking! I tell you, I can feel the ship going down.”
“Of course you can,” Sandy said easily. “Let’s go watch it.”
Then Sandy grinned—and Jerry James clapped his hands to his forehead in dismay and cried, “Of course; we’re in the locks!”
“Right the second time,” Sandy laughed. “And I’ll bet if we had been going uplake, you would have sworn that we were flying! Come on, let’s go topside.”
They clambered above and feasted their eyes on one of the strangest sights they had ever seen.
The James Kennedy was floating in what can only be described as a long, narrow tub—almost a quarter mile in length and with about ten or fifteen feet clearance on either side of the sixty-foot-wide ship. What amazed Sandy and Jerry was that there were at least four more of these enormous, man-made tubs, some as large, others smaller. All of them held vessels of about the same size as the Kennedy. Some even held two of them.
The tubs were formed by huge water gates at either end. Behind their boat, Sandy and Jerry could see the water level of Lake Superior. What astonished them was that it seemed to be higher than they were!
And it was.
At that very moment, as the two friends glanced over the side, they could see that water was being pumped out of their tub. They were, as Jerry James had said, sinking! The level of the water in their tub was dropping so fast that more and more of the water gate behind them became visible. Now, they could see, it had actually become a dam, holding out the waters of Lake Superior that rose above them.