Sunday, November 10, 2013

Riding The Storm Out

I was seriously entertaining the idea of heading over to Chicago today in order to catch the St Marys Challenger on her last journey as a self powered vessel but the weather did not seem terribly cooperative.  It was a pretty windy day on the lakes today.  So windy that I learned the Roger Blough had anchored off Belle Isle this morning.  So rather than heading to Chicago, I decided to head down to Detroit.
 I've seen a few ships in this anchorage in the past.  The first ship that I saw there was the Arthur M. Anderson and it was a similarly windy day.  In fact, that was the time I last my first hat to the Detroit River.  Today it was pretty cloudy and temperature wise it would be fine if it weren't for the wind.
 I don't know if you can see the flag in this shot, but she is almost straight up.  It was that windy.
 A shot of her stack.  She has one of the more unique stacks amongst the lake boats.
 As I was wandering around Milliken State Park, I was trying to get different angles of her.  Here she is behind the Peter Stroh statue.
 In case you did not see the flag in the picture I was trying to point it out.  I wish I could remember the rules of thumb for wind speed based on what a flag was doing.
 So then I moved around the park a little more.  This was near the part of the park that used to be the slip for the Detroit Shipbuilding Company.
 A shot of her through the trees.  There are still little hints of autumn around, although the leaves are pretty much gone.
 A shot of her bow and pilothouse.  I want to say she was the last front mounted pilothouse ship built on the Lakes.
 A closer shot of her pilothouse.
 A view of Milliken State Park to go along with the Blough.
 Shooting at the Blough through the willows.
 A shot of her with Windsor as a backdrop.
 Another shot of her bow and pilothouse.
 A closer shot of her pilothouse from this angle.
 I also wanted to try to get a shot of the Tri-Centennial Lighthouse in a shot with her.  I will have more pictures of the lighthouse later.
 She's looking a little rough for wear but not as bad as some of the ships I've seen out there.
 Sort of a shot of the lighthouse with her.
 Another shot of her full beam.
 The funny anchor sculpture at the park.
 Another shot of the lighthouse.
 Her unusual self-unloading gear.
 A shot of her pilothouse from the rear.  You can see a few more scrapes from this angle.
 The winds shifted a bit.
 Then I decided to take the trip to Belle Isle to get some shots of her with Detroit as the backdroup.
 And then the Ambassador Bridge.
 I was actually hoping to get a frontal shot, but I think I would have had to be on the MacArthur Bridge for that.

 The sun was trying to peek through the clouds every so often.  I never really managed to capture a decent shot of that.
And one more shot of her.

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