Planewatching at Detroit Metro Again

After catching the ship yesterday, I didn't really want to end my day because it was actually too nice.  After close to a week of sub-freezing temperatures, it was nice to be a little above 32 for a change.

 An MD-90 arriving from Atlanta.  Allegiant has retired all of their MD planes.  American is in the process of retiring their MD planes.  I think Delta is in the process of retiring their MD planes.  Soon these planes will be rare after serving the airlines in one form or another for over 50 years.

 A Gulfstream G650 arriving from somewhere.  Business jets tend to get blocked on flight tracker programs.  It was kind of neat seeing this plane.

 One more view of it.

 an A330 arriving from Heathrow.

 Another angle of that plane.

 Another A330 arriving from Amsterdam.

 The plane ended up turning around and heading to Paris.

 An A320 arriving from Miami.

 An A320 belonging to Spirit Airlines arriving from Fort Lauderdale.

 another view of that plane.

 The beam shot of that plane.

 A Delta E175 arriving from Rochester, New York.

 A beacon shot of a Frontier A321.

 the Frontier showing off Courtney the Cougar on the table.  This particular plane arrived from Orlando.

 An E175 arriving from Washington DC.

 A 737 arriving from Jacksonville.

 Another angle of that plane.

 A CRJ-900 arriving from Charlotte.

This is an Embrear Phenom 300.  It is another business jet.  This particular one is built in Brazil and first flew in 2009.

 I had to stick around for this plane.

The 757 is by far my favorite commercial plane.  This particular one was arriving from Orlando.

The Iver Bright Passes By

The ship that I wanted to catch was this one.

 The ship in question was the Iver Bright.  I'm not sure where she was coming from but I think she was heading to Windsor.

 The Iver Bright is kind of unusual as she is salty that has stayed behind for the winter.  Usually they leave the Seaway System before the Welland Canal closes.

 But I think she is delivering asphalt in the area and consequently is staying behind.

 She is also rare in that she is a ship registered in the country where she is owned.

 In this case, the Netherlands.  Usually foreign ships use flags of convenience.

 At any rate, it was pretty cool to see a proper ship even though I saw one last weekend.

 she passes by the park.

 More of a beam shot.

 She continues down the river.  Like I said, she was stopping somewhere in Windsor.

She continues on.

The Griffon Taking a Breather

I was hoping that I would catch the Griffon as she passed by.  She was escorting a tug/barge that was heading up to Cheboygan.  I think the tug/barge needed fuel, so she stopped at Mistersky.

I also think that the Risley would be taking up icebreaking duties as she was hanging out near Belle Isle.  The Griffon ended up staying in Windsor.  Oh well.  This was the best picture that I could get.

The Morro Bay Breaking Ice on the Detroit River

So after I finished watching the halftime show yesterday, I decided to take a look at AIS because I saw that there might be a ship heading down.  And sure enough there was and if I left at that time, I would have enough time to catch it.

 The ship in question will be coming up but it was being escorted by the Samuel Risley and this tug, the Morro Bay.  As you can see from the picture, there was quite a bit of ice on the Detroit River which is unusual because it doesn't seem like the Detroit River freezes over.

 I'd imagine under normal circumstances that would be the case but we had sub-zero temperatures last week and they helped accelerate the freezing.  It was in the 40's yesterday though.

 The Risley didn't continue down but the Morro Bay did.  I don't think the ice was that thick.

 It was pretty neat watching this guy in action because you could hear the ice being broke.

 Plus these are pretty neat looking boats.

 But she was making light work of the ice.

 A little smoke as she pours on the engines.  She might have hit some thicker ice.

And she continued down the river.  I think the ship she was escorting wasn't going that far down the river because I saw her docked in Windsor on AIS.

Miami RedHawks at Eastern Michigan Eagles - Basketball

I went to the Eastern Michigan basketball game yesterday.  Because of weather and not really feeling well, this was the first game I've been to in a while.  Sadly, the game didn't live up to my expectations as I left at halftime to catch a ship that would be passing Detroit.  Eastern Michigan was down by seven points at that point but it didn't look like they were going to be mounting a comeback.  These are my pictures from the game, if you want to see actual game shots, go to Hustle Belt.

 The drummer playing during the Star Spangled Banner.  I like it more when they have the band playing to song.

 Swoop looking on.

 The Eastern Michigan dance team during one of their routines.

 Kevin McAdoo getting mugged on the way to the basket.  I think they called this charging.  Anyway, Eastern Michigan was having a hard time finding the basket.

 I stuck around for the halftime show, it was pretty entertaining.

 Some sort of stunt dogs.

 Jumping over some stuff.

 the two dogs were rolling this as the other dog walked around.

 A conga line?

The guys were running around and the dog was jumping over them.

Eastern Michigan would end up losing the game 59-48.  I was able to listen to it as I was heading to Detroit and it sounded about as ugly as what I was watching at the game.