We left the wall at the top of lock E-12 in the morning. Shortly after leaving I noticed a sudden change in the sound of the exhaust again, and looking at the exhaust noticed less water and more white smoke. I had a sinking feeling that our repair had failed, but after checking the muffler all looked to be fine with it, no leaking at all and everything was still attached.

We pulled off the channel and anchored again, and I started looking through the raw water system to see if something was wrong. Checked the raw water impeller, but it looked fine, the sea strainer was perfectly clean... It could be something sucked into the input through-hole, so I remove the hose of the sea strainer and blew some air through it. It didn't seem like anything was blocking it, but who knows. I put everything back together and started it up, and the problem was gone, normal water flow and everything was working good again. Presumably it was something blocking flow at the water intake?

With that problem fixed, we pulled anchor and motored on, happy that it wasn't the muffler connection that failed. No more problem the rest of the day, so we'll consider that fixed for now.

We went through lock E-13, E-14 and E-15 and then we were on to the much anticipated lock E-16 and E-17 which had been closed and the cause of our delay. These last two locks were only operating on a 2 hour interval, and our timing was such that we had to wait around at E-16 for a little over an hour. We just dropped anchor in the channel and waited for it to open. We went through with a large group in E-16, but on E-17 they could only port tie up, so we had to do that in two groups, and we were at the back so ended up in the second group.

After coming through E-17 the Rotary Club marina in Little Falls is just past there. Thankfully Mr. Turtle had held us a spot, and we were able to dock up when we got there near the end of the day. On top of that they went and picked us up pizza and wings for us, so we had a nice evening after a long day (engine issues, 32NM and 5 locks). We got some magic card lessons and an intro deck too, so Aria and I played some magic as well which was fun. Also got some showers in which was nice.

Little Falls looks nice, and I wish we weren't in such a rush, but tomorrow morning we'll continue on!