Algoma Hansa | tugster: a waterblog

So I headed north and got a pilot . . .

and eventually I found myself here . . . just following the pilot, mind you.

And what else would they call a vessel traveling on the big river north of here . . .?

This mural has appeared on this blog once before here, but in case you’ve forgotten it, it was added two years ago to mark the 175th of Canada and the 375th of Montreal. To all my friends north of the border, Happy Canada Day.

Algoma Hansa is a US-built, Canada-flagged Great Lakes tanker.

Algoma vessels are certainly what one expects to see along this international waterway. Algoma Niagara has appeared on this blog once before at least here.

She’s a self-unloader–notice that CSL St Laurent is not?–built in Jingjiang China just two years ago.

But this time of year, you can see the unexpected on the waterway also . . . . Any guesses?

It’s a new old vessel, nao Santa Maria from the port of Huelva Spain . . . getting an assist traveling against the stronger-than-usual currents from. “Nao” is the Spanish word for carrack. The assist boat is the Seaway Sinead.

The schooner is Bluenose II, here passing THE windmill.

You don’t know the story of the battle of the windmill . . . This is one you should know. It happened in 1838 and saw the Royal Navy and the US Navy pitted against “hunter patriots,” a motley band of Canadian and US rebels based in the US attempting to overthrow British rule in the colony 30 years before Canadian confederation.