The Kaye E. Barker Passes Belle Isle

So I decided to head down to Detroit tonight, I was hoping to catch the Great Republic in her new livery.  She was repainted over the winter to match the rest of her Great Lakes Fleet mates.   I have not caught her at all.  It seems like she is always elsewhere when I get a chance to catch her.  When I checked AIS, I thought I had a chance to catch her.  If not at Belle Isle, possibly at at Del Ray or something.  When I got there, I saw she had completely passed by the time I got there.

 Oh well, all wasn't entirely lost, as I saw that the Kaye E. Barker was heading out of the Rouge River as I was heading down to Detroit.  I figured she would make a pretty acceptable substitute.

 She is definately a classic laker.

 Or classy laker, depending on your point of view.  I'll have to look at the numbers, but she may be next to the Blough as far as ships I catch fairly often.

 For the most part, she makes the run between the steel mils on the Rouge and Marquette.  That means she's a pretty frequent visitor of these parts.

 So then I went to the other part of the island.  I wanted to catch her from the fishing pier.

 She may be so frequent that she has mustard stains from all the coneys her crew eats.  But one thing I never noticed before is that she has a proper crows nest.  I think that is pretty cool.

 But she just sort of moves along.  I think she is probably heading back to Marquette for more taconite.

 Which means that I could see her again.

And she continues on her merry way.