And the Lovely Kaye E. Barker on the Rouge River

 The ship that I wanted to catch was the Kaye E. Barker.  She is one of my favorites because she looks so nice.

She was coming down from Marquette with the usual load of taconite.  She was coming on the heels of the Lee A. Tregurtha.

I saw that she was coming down last night and I figured out roughly when she would be passing.

I was happy to find out it was going to be some time in the afternoon.  That seems to be when the light is the best on the Rouge River.

I mean she is fairly well illuminated.

I started here at the Jefferson Bridge.   I don't usually catch ships passing the Jefferson Bridge but I found a nice spot to catch them.

I met another boatnerd here.

I thought the sky looked pretty cool.

I headed over to the Fort Street Bridge.  I decided to use my drone here.

It was a little on the windy side though but not too windy.

Because I had my drone, I was able to watch her pass through the rail bridge.

I think this is a fairly unique rail bridge.

But I'm not quite sure how unique.

But she is coming into view.

I kind of like this shot.

Next she was passing through the Fort Street Bridge.

It's a kind of cool looking bridge but I think the one she replaced looked cooler.

I lowered the drone a bit.

And then a bit more.

Probably my favorite angle because it is almost like looking up at it.

And then I headed over to the Dix Avenue Bridge, I think I like the views here the best.

A cormorant passes her.  There are quite a few cormorants on the river.

It almost looks like they are divebombing her.

It wasn't calm enough to get reflections in the river.

The sky looked pretty cool though.

One more shot from this side of the Bridge.

Trying for a different angle.

I kind of like how the lines lead into her.

She passes.

One of the crew making sure she has enough clearance through the bridge.

One of her holds.

Her hatch crane.

The back of her pilothouse.

More of her passes.

Her plimsoll lines.  I think the lakes might be a little lower because she's not as loaded as I've seen her before.

A couple other hatches.

The control room for the self unloading crane.

One of her boats.

Her stack.

Another shot of her stack.

A pair of auto inflating lifeboats.

Another boat.

The Stars and Stripes flying in the breeze.

She starts to make the turn for her slip.

Probably one of my favorite views on the Lakes.

A stern shot.

One more before moving on.