My First Ship of the Season....Kaministiqua

Anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time, will know that I like ships.  Some people may say that I like them too much but I couldn't really pass up what amounted to opening day for many ships.  The Welland Canal opened on Friday to much fanfare and the Soo opens tonight at midnight (or tomorrow depending on your point of view) to not as much fanfare.  The combination of those two events mean that the Lakes are now open for travel.

That being said, I'm going to try to focus less on ships this year and more on other things.  I'm still going to do them but not as often and we'll see how that goes.

 Friday brought my first vessel of the season.  Yesterday brought my frist ship, the Kaministiqua. For this I decided to head up to Port Huron.  I took M-29 since I wasn't sure where I would catch the ships.  This first set is at Marine City.   While I am not a fan of the rear pilothouses, I do like the Kaministiqua.  With all her rust and stuff, she has character that many other ships do not have.

 She is definately a pretty hard used vessel and I think in this case, she was going from her wintering spot in Windsor to Sarnia.  I'm not sure what she will be doing after that.

 It's hard to believe that she was built in 1982.

 Normally, I would separate the pictures into the spots where I took them.  I think for the pictures I took yesterday, I'm just going to group them by ship.  In this picture, you can see the Kaministiqua passing the ship that would be the second ship I saw for the day.  This was taken in St. Clair.

 One of the things I like about the St. Clair River is that it is fairly narrow, so you can get some pretty close shots of the ships.

 A shot of her pilothouse.  I just love the way the rust goes over the sides.  It almost looks like it is painted on.

 A shot of her bow.

 And she proudly flies the Maple Leaf.

 And one more shot as she heads further up the river.

 For the next series of shots, I headed up to the Maritime Center in Port Huron.  That actually provides a pretty good vantage point for shipwatching.

 Another shot of her bow.  As I was taking these pictures, someone came out of the Maritime Center and commented that she was a crappy looking boat.  I said that she has character and he said, "I guess you can call it that".  I don't think she's all that crappy, with a little paint, she'll look fine again.  Although, they should just paint her with a rust colored paint so as not to shock anyone.

 A closeup of her pilothouse.

 And anchor.  I think some of the rust may come from the fact that she hauls iron ore quite a bit.

 Or it may be from her days as a saltie.

 A shot of her bow.  You will see many salties with this style of bow.  It basically pushes the ice out of the way.  Theoretically, she could be used in the winter.

 Another shot of her pilothouse.

 For this shot, I decided to catch her reflection in the window of the Maritime Center.  I kind of like this shot.

 But I like this one better.

 And she heads away from the Maritime Center.

And one last shot before I left Port Huron.