And Now For Something Completely Different...the Roger Blough

Actually the Blough is not all that different on this blog.  She is by far the champion amongst my ship pictures.  Honestly, I have no idea why other than she's a cool looking boat.

 So I was at Algonac State Park waiting for her.  I was excited as she appeared around the bend.  For some reason she reminds me of a snapping turtle.

 She's wide enough to be a 1000 footer but not long enough.  She is only 858 feet long.  She can carry almost 44,000 tons of cargo.

 She mostly splits her time between Conneaut, Ohio and Gary, Indiana.  I like it when she comes down this way.

 A shot of her bow and pilothouse.

 A shot of her pilothouse.

 She has one of the more unique looking stacks out there.

 Her selfunloader.  This is part of the reason why she splits between two ports.  There aren't many ports that can handle this system.

 So then I moved up to Marine City where I almost got a headshot.  I think she looks better when she is loaded though.

 She slowly works her way up.

 Another shot of her.

 She starts to pass me.

 A shot of her pilothouse.

 The almost straight out shot. 

 It's amazing how close these boats were getting to her.

 She works her way up the River.

 A shot of her stern.

And one more before she and I move on.

I was thinking of following her all the way up to Port Huron but I had already had a long day at this point and I wanted to get home.  If I had followed her up, I would have caught another new ship.  Oh well.

Return of River Randomness

Just some random pictures I took during the day.

 While I was waiting at the Blue Water Bridge, I saw someone kitsurfing.

 He was doing a few jumps but I didn't get any of those.

 Just in case you forgot what's on the other side of the River.

 Now this would be cool.  Be able to hop in your plane as you leave your house.

 A seagull looking for a handout.

 A sailboat just moving along.

 Queen Anne's Lace.

 Black Eyed Susan.

 A honey bee.

 A different honey bee.

A rescue boat.

And Now...the Lovely Kaye E. Barker

Next up is the ever lovely Kaye E. Barker.  I believe she was heading down to Dearborn to leave some taconite at the Severstal Dock.

 Her she is as she is coming off of Lake Huron and about to enter the St. Clair River.  I love this spot because you get such a clean picture of the boat.  As you can see, she is pretty loaded.

 You also get to see a few turns as she enters the channel.

 And an almost headshot.

 For as big as ships are, there are still some things that dwarf them.

 Except when the angles are just right. 

 She slowly works her way past.

 A shot of her pilothouse.  She does have one of the more unique looking pilothouses out there.

 A shot of her deckhouse.

 And she moves down the river.

 Another shot of her stern.

 Again she seems almost insignificant.

 I sort of decided to chase her down the River.  Mainly there was another ship I was trying to catch, which meant I was back where I started.

 Slowly she comes into view.  This is another one of the nice things about points on the St. Clair River, you can see the ships from a ways away.

 There's a nice looking ship.

 The almost straight out shot.

 A shot of her pilothouse.

And one more picture for good measure.

A Tregurtha of a Different Sort

So I decided to go boatwatching again on Sunday.  There were two ships that drew me out but one of them drew me up to the St. Clair River instead of just sticking around Detroit.

 The first ship was the grizzled war veteran, the Lee A. Tregurtha.  I will have to say that she is one of the neater looking ships on the Lakes.

 I had one more motive though.  On one of the facebook groups I visit, it was proposed that different people get pictures of the ship at different points along it's journey.  So I was going to try to catch her at different points along the St. Clair River.

 The first stop was Algonac State Park.  Actually, I like the view from Algonac and I might even try to stay at the campground one of these times.

 A shot of her pilothouse as she moves on.

 A relatively clean shot of her as she works her way up the St. Clair River.

 My next stop was Marine City.  There is a nice little park there where you can almost get a headshot.

 But I got a nice shot of her pilothouse and bow.

 A closer shot of her pilothouse.

 Since the Tregurtha was converted from an ocean going tanker right after World War II, she has a fairly unique bow.  She's a had a pretty colorful career since then.

 Another shot of her pilothouse, as you can see, she still sports her campaign ribbons from the War.

 Her flag was flying in the breeze fairly proudly.

 I kind of like it against this backdrop.

 A shot of her stack.

 I moved a little further up in Marine City.  This gave me a chance to get some straight out shots.

 And she moves on.  I didn't stop in St. Clair because they had my favorite park blocked off for some festival.  I also didn't stop in Marysville because I was getting hungry, so I grabbed lunch at the Marine Center. 

 So my next stop was on the other side of the Blue Water Bridge.  I'm really liking shooting in Port Huron.  There are enough bends in the river that I get shots like this.

 And shots like this.

 Just a standard shot of her pilothouse.

 But my favorite thing is getting a shot against the Blue Water Bridge.

 Another shot of her front.

And one more shot as she heads into Lake Huron.