CB9

Call this Ambassador Bridge Detroit to Lake St. Clair, the sixth Great Lake.  For starters at sunrise, it’s Argentia Desgagnes.  

Offloading coal at USSteel, it’s Clyde S. Van Enkvort, formerly a DonJon tug.

Here’s a waterside view of Cheyenne.

Upclose to the Detroit Jazz Fest, it’s Lake Guardian and

Escanaba, WMEC-907.

Farther north, it’s Bristol Bay and

this tragic sight of SS Ste Clair, sister ship of SS Columbia.

And closing out this post, it’s a Seadoo above the lifeboat of

Salvage Monarch.  A hanging Seadoo like this is something I’ve never seen before.  It strikes me as a good idea.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

GWA7: negotiating the straits of Erie

“Motor city” is another name for Detroit, but “detroit” is only part of the name for the waterway given by the French explorer Cadillac when he led the first Europeans to settle “Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit” on a bank of “le détroit du lac Érié,”  the strait of Lake Erie), linking Lake Huron and Lake Erie; historically,  the strait included the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River.

Some time after departing the Cuyahoga, we pass this mysterious site.  Any ideas?  I’ll identify it at the end of this post.

If you’re not at the helm, straits bring the treat of relatively close passage with other traffic, like Dorothy Ann and Pathfinder here.

Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial is a 352′ monument we can all live with, sans controversy.

As we approach the center of the contemporary city of Detroit, traffic and industry intensify.   I’d never noticed GLW’s glowing slag heaps, like crafted flows of lava.

On the Windsor side, Frontenac transfers payload .  . not sure what.  Salt maybe?

On the American side, 1000′ Edwin H. Gott is likely discharging Superior ore or taconite.

Sturgeon Bay-built Sam Laud watches from the Rouge.  Laud, the namesake, moved from shop painter and riveter to CEO of GATX.

Folks on the bridge of Algoma Olympic, Port Weller-built and down bound here just south of the Ambassador Bridge, must be experiencing the frustration of having to worry about devil-may-care recreational boaters.  Recently, a high profile meeting of stake holders was held at Port Huron to deal with difficult small boat operators, one in particular who decided to play chicken with a freighter .

Last year this China-built tug was called Victorious;  now she’s know as Leo A. McArthur, and as then, she pushes hot asphalt contained in John J. Carrick.

Patricia Hoey (built 1949) is a good example of the extended life experienced by freshwater boats.

A McAsphalt unit like Leo A. McDonald, Everlast, matched as always with Norman McLeod, is Japan-built.

I’d love to learn more about this Windsor home, but the name on the facade is that of the Massachusetts-born founder of Canadian Club whisky.

Just north of Belle Isle, SS Ste. Claire, Boblo ferry sister of SS Columbia,  marks Kean’s Marina.

And with night falling and work for me to do, we’ll leave this post only partway through the strait with Kaye E. Barker, once Benson Ford III.  Notice the GMRenCen in the distance just forward of the front of the self-unloading arm?  GMRenCen was built by Ford.

The return of daylight will find us in Lake Huron.  To see the St. Clair River by daylight, click here.  All photos and sentiments by Will Van Dorp.

The sinuous structures in the top photo depict Cedar Point as seen from a few miles out in the lake.

 

 

 

Road Fotos 12

Harold Tartell and Jan van der Doe were 100% correct in their identification of the white-striped red self-unloading vessel in Road Fotos 11.  It is the Arthur M. Anderson.  I didn’t get to see it close up, but through the magic of YouTube, it’s rubbing-or-scrapping distance here.  At about a minute into the video, you learn how the can be that close.

One of the joys of gallivanting is meeting new folks;  this was especially true here.  One person on this waterfront had a focus I recognized;  he carried a zoom camera and looked at the same things I did.  Seeing me take a foto of Arthur M. Anderson, he said its name (which I’d not been thinking of).  Then he added, “And farther down there, it’s American Integrity.”    Check out Ken’s blog here.  Here are some highlights of Ken’s blog:  American Century, the Westcott delivering mail to a passing vessel, Stephen B. Roman, a 1000-footer dwarfed by “big mac“, and check this one . . . the Huron Lightship . . . which I spotted from the Blue Water Bridge but couldn’t quite figure out.  When I have more time, I plan to digest Ken’s archives, now added to my blog roll.

Here are my shots of Westcott and Hogan.  I’d love this job although it has risk.

My zoom camera quit as this vessel approached, frustrating because I’d recognized the Algoma bear logo.  And I’d assumed it was a bulk carrier too, as I thought that was Algoma’s only business, but Algosar is a tanker.  See her history here.

Just south of the Ambassador Bridge, Dutch-flagged Moezelborg transfers cargo near the now-abandoned Boblo Island Detroit dock building.  Boblo lives on but only in the way that this whole list of defunct amusement parks does.  When Moezelborg left the international port of Detroit, she headed north, west, and south for the next international port of Chicago.

Here’s another shot of the two steamers that served Boblo Island, SS Columbia and SS Ste Claire.  I wanted to get better shots but even as I got this–along with my anonymous partner–we were threatened with arrest for trespassing, which I firmly believe we were NOT doing.  Here and here are more links for Ste Claire.  The second one is a video of a tour of Ste Claire, interesting video but unfortunate audio.

I hope to return to Detroit in August, and at that time, hope to arrange for a boat tour of the waterfront, possibly to get better shots of these vessels.

I have returned to the sixth boro, but part of my heart got left behind in Detroit, a place of both rust and new molten steel.

Here, fun but otherwise a propos of nothing except a post on the official end-of-hurricane-season, check out “bone in its teeth” blog.