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Onward we go, even if I’ve lagged a bit behind our actual wake. I’ll reprise this account to fill in after I’m back on shore and enjoying fast . . . everything. It was after 2000 that we passed the water intake on Wednesday.
Ten minutes later the sun touched the waters to the west.
Nine hours later we passed this McKeil tanker as we were upbound in the approach to the Detroit River.
The new Gordie Howe Bridge rises high about Zug Island steel works.
A bit blurred because I had to shoot through a port light . . . it’s Tenacious, a 1960-built veteran.
Later I caught Gott, Edwin H. down bound on the Detroit River.
As I watched, the crewman lowered a bucket to crew on M S Westcott, exchanging mail or maybe Grey Poupon.
As darkness overcame us again, Iver Bright passed down bound.
The following sunrise found us on a track paralleling the US/CA border, well east of down bound traffic.
American Mariner greeted us as we approached our destination, Mackinac.
Welcome, back.
All photos, minimal commentary as I write this from Lake Michigan, WVD.
Welcome to a series from around the Straits of Mackinac.
This vessel or vessels?
The nearer boat is American Mariner, and the farther, John J. Boland, both built in Sturgeon Bay WI.
Call this boogie boarding beneath the big bridge . . .
West of the Strait, we pass the unique Steward J Cort, once known as Stubby.
Is this mobile wheeled crane the hatch remover?
As we passed White Shoal Light, I lined up with Waugoshance in the distance, and then noticed
the tender, covered with a green tarp.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
A combo of current and breeze makes for spectacular splash . . .
And in a place of such clear water and natural beauty . . .
it’s uplifting.
Even with stolid lakers like John J. Boland and American
Mariner, this interplay of forces makes a display.
Small boats appear nearly submerged.
x
This appears to be a training chase . . .
It’s not surprising the original inhabitants thought this place was Eden.
All photos by will Van Dorp.
To start, these are boats, I’m told, not ships. I first saw the type as a kid, reading a book that made an impression and crossing the St Lawrence on the way to the grandparents’ farm.
I’ve posted Great Lakes photos a fair number of times in the past few years, so I continue CYPHER series here with Manitowoc –a river-size self unloader–departing Cleveland for Milwaukee.
Alpena–1942–with the classic house-forward design transports cement. I was thrilled to pass her late this summer on a magnificent Lake Huron afternoon.
Although you might not guess it, Algoma Harvester was built here half a world away from the Lakes. To get to her trading waters, she crossed two oceans, and christened less than four years ago. The selling point is that she carries more cargo than typically carried within the size parameters of a laker (Seawaymax), requires fewer crew, and exhausts cleaner. I took the photo on the Welland.
Thunder Bay hails from the same river in China as Algoma Harvester and just a year earlier. The photo was taken near Montreal in the South Shore Canal.
Tim S. Dool was built on a Canadian saltwater port in 1967. I caught her here traversing the American Narrows on the St. Lawrence.
American Mariner was built in Wisconsin in 1979. In the photo below she heads unbound on Lake St. Louis. I’ve seen her several times recently, here at night and here upbound St. Clair River.
Baie St. Paul is a slightly older, nearly identical Chinese built sister to Thunder Bay.
Algolake, launched 1977, was among the boats built in the last decade of the Collingwood Shipyard.
Lee R. Tregurtha, here down bound in Port Huron, has to have among the most interesting history of any boat currently called a laker. She was launched near Baltimore in 1942 as a T-3 tanker, traveled the saltwater world for two decades, and then came to the lakes. I also caught her loading on Huron earlier this year here.
Mississagi is another classic, having worked nearly 3/4 of a century on the Lakes.
Buffalo, 1978 Wisconsin built, and I have crossed paths lots recently, earlier this month here. The photo below was taken near Mackinac; you can see part of the bridge off her stern. Tug Buffalo from 1923, the one going to the highest bidder in five days, now stands to go to the bidder with $2600 on the barrelhead.
I’ll close this installment out with lake #12 in this post . . . . Hon. James L. Oberstar, with steel mill structures in the background, has been transporting cargo on the lakes since the season of 1959. She is truly a classic following that steering pole. See Oberstar in her contexts here, here, and really up close, personal, and almost criminally so for the diligent photographer, here.
All photos by Will Van Dorp. More to come.
We continue along the Great Coast, now on Lake Erie, a place of
dramatic early morning skies.
And lakers against the canary daybreak.
Calumet has just left the Cuyahoga,
Italcementi Essroc has the very best logo . . .
and Stephen B. Roman has worn it for some time now, as it also has the distinction of being the first vessel to break out of the Toronto winter ice most years.
The engineering department catches some air and ambience entering Cleveland on a late summer evening.
See the hatch in the hull of Buffalo directly below the ladder on the port side?
J. S. St John (1945!) is a sand dredge I’d love to see under way. I caught these two slightly different angles in Erie PA.
And finally, American Mariner–possibly transporting grain to ADM in Buffalo–makes her way into port and up the ship canal after dark sans assistance. Two details not captured by these photos include the sound of crew opening hatches and the effect of three spotlights picking up a variety of landmarks along its path in.
Here’s the scoop (pun intended!) on the purple lights on the Connecting Terminal elevator.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
This is a new title, although I’ve had part of the experience before. Frequently, I take photos but don’t notice the most interesting detail of the shot until I download the files to the computer, the bigger screen. Here and here are some examples.
This post, though, features others’ shots because I didn’t snap what I saw. I couldn’t make sense of it and for some reason that escapes me now, I failed to use the zoom although I wondered what it looked like up closer. As I said before, I don’t know why I did not shoot.
From my angle, what I saw was more like this, only tinier. Click here for the source of these photos.
Strangely, what I took was in the opposite direction . . . maybe because I trusted there’d be something to find on a map or chart when I looked it up.
In the other case, what I saw was this . . . in the lower quarter of the photo, which originally appeared here.
And I took a photo of the sign so that I could
research it later, but I needed more time in location to get the shot I wanted. Below is what I really wanted to know. Click on the b/w photo for the source.
Anyhow, lessons to be learned as a photographer need to be heeded.
As we head upstream into Montreal, an orange dawn greets us from beyond Sainte-Anne de Varennes Basilica.
Closer to Montreal, a line of ships awaits, three at anchor and two down bound.
Ocean Intrepide switches the pilots.
If I’d been sleep-deprived, my first sense of Biosphere might have been a nearby planet beyond Buffalo-built American Mariner.
I recognized Balder immediately, new name notwithstanding.
And the raised metal confirmed my suspicion.
I was not expecting to learn of this direct link to a distant archipelago rich in lobsters and road salt, but one of these years, that’s a trip I’d love to do both for the destination--Îles de la Madeleine–and the journey.
I have no photos to prove it, but I wanted to experience Lachine Rapids, so I took a surprisingly enjoyable tour in one of these get-very-wet boats.
I wanted to see the rapids, because without this perceived barrier to reaching China from here, Montreal might not have become a city.
Because we tied up at Bickerdike terminal, we had the good fortune to see these Svitzer tugs and
here passing the Clock Tower.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who comes to the end of the actual trip with this post and who will now recap the same trip with some of the details left out.
Let’s look at these from a different perspective . . . whether they can escape the inland seas shared by the US and Canada or not. The maximum size the Seaway aka Highway H2O can accommodate is 740′ x 78. x 30.’
So Kaye E. Barker . . . 767′ x 70′ x 36′ . . . Nope. But when she first came off the ways in Toledo in 1951, her loa was 647′ and she had no self-unloader, so back then she could have,
although there was no St. Lawrence Seaway then either. So Nope again. But she was not lengthened until 1976, so Yes. Her tonnage capacity is 25,900.
Mississagi comes in at 620′ x 60′ x 35,’ so if she’s carrying a partial load . . . maybe. She came out of the River Rouge in 1943. Her capacity . . . 15,800 tons.
In photo #2 above and the one below, notice the RenCen of Detroit.
American Mariner came out of Buffalo in 1979 at 730′ x 78′ x 45.’
So with a light load, yes.
Her capacity is 37,200 tons.
I don’t know if she ever leaves the Upper Lakes.
Chemtrans Elbe is a saltie, so obviously she’s a global traveler. She was built in Korea in 2009 and measures 423′ x 75.’
Edzard Schulte was built in China in 2011, 475′ x ’75.’
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
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