The Duluth Harbor Cruise

So I ended up taking a harbor cruise yesterday.  I never used to like to do this sort of thing but after taking the Detroit River cruise a couple years ago, I discovered that it is a good way to see things you wouldn't normally get to see otherwise.  If nothing else, it gave me some angles that I could only get from the water.

 A shot of the Aerial Lift Bridge as we were starting to pull out from the dock.

 A shot of the captain.

 The lift bridge raising up to allow us to enter Lake Superior.  To the left is the Maritime Museum.  The lighthouse on the right is the North Pier Light.  The other is the South Pier Light.

 You can see the Alder out on the horizon.

 An angle of the lighthouse that I couldn't get otherwise.

 A shot of the other lighthouse.

 A closeup of the lighthouse tower.

 If I were going to put this is a separate post, I would call it the "dock of dreams".   Apparently this was an attempt to build a dock on the outside of the harbor.  It didn't work too well.  Something tells me that it had something to do with this not being in the protected part of the harbor.

 The Central High School of Duluth.  It doesn't serve as a school anymore though.

 Fitger's.  This started as a brewery at one time.  While the US was under prohibition, they made candies and sodas.  After prohibition was repealed, it served as a brewery for a while.  Now it is apartments with a microbrewery.

 A memorial to the Vietnam Veterans of the Duluth area.

 A chunk of ice passing by the boat.

 A shot of Duluth.

 Another shot of the pilothouse.

 The Apollon.  She is still waiting to load grain.  Apparently, they wait out here instead of in the harbor because they don't have to pay anything to wait out here.

 Turning back towards the harbor.  I really like this view.

 Apparently the roof of this building is made out of copper.  When it was new, it shined so brightly that it was the cause of a couple airplane crashes.  Over the years, they let it get the rusted copper color.

 Another shot of the lighthouse.

 I kind of liked the shot of the flag and the lighthouse.

 I believe this used to be a cement plant.

 The pilothouse of the Clymer.  This used to be in a scrapyard and the scrapyard owner decided to save the pilothouse.

 A fairly new grain elevator.

 A tugboat.  I don't remember what her name was.

 One of the Great Lakes Towing Company tugs.  She is the North Carolina.

 A nice little lineup of tugs.  From front to back there is the North Carolina, North Dakota, Kentucky and Minnesota.  The tour guide said they have 50 tugs and they are named after different states.

 Since I like bow shots.

 The J.B. Ford.  Currently she is serving as a storage ship for the cement plant.  There are plans to convert her into a museum ship but I'm not sure how that is going.

 The Iryda loading grain.

 The Richard I. Bong Bridge.

 The CN Ore Dock dwarfing the Roger Blough.  When you think of the size of the Blough, it's hard to imagine something that can dwarf a ship.  It looks like the dock is long enough to accommodate two 1000 footers.

 The Fraser I.  I think this is a tugboat version of a switcher engine on a railroad.  It can be used to put barges together.

 Some train cars that carry ore to the docks.

 A huge pile of taconite.  Taconite is a less pure version of iron ore but rather than waste all the space of a hull with material that one be used, they are purified and processed into little pellets.

 A huge pile of coal.  I have some pictures of the Walter J. McCarthy loading here.  I will get to those a little later.

 A tern.

The Blue Heron.  I'm not sure what this boat does.