An Old Friend Returns

I think I've been seriously boatwatching for close to 7 years now.  I've liked ships most of my life but I wasn't following them closely until after I started this blog.  When you follow something long enough, you start to develop favorites and in a weird way you can get attached to them.  My first ship today is one of those.

 In December, the Alpena caught on fire while she was in drydock in Sturgeon Bay.  Fortunately, the fire wasn't in any of the important areas but still fire is nothing to be trifled with.  I was kind of relieved when I heard there was no major damage because Alpena is one of my favorites.

 In fact, she was the subject of one of my earlier pictures where I thought that I could do this ship photography thing.  Anyway, my day started in Belle Isle.  Sadly, I was shooting into the sun, so I'm not 100% happy with these pictures but they will do.

 And the lovely Lady makes her way past Belle Isle.

 Then I decided to head down to Del Ray Park.  I figured she was going to unload at the cement dock right next door to it.  I also figured that I would shooting with the sun instead of against it.

 For the most part I was.

 The beam shot.

 And a beam shot with a loon in it.  This is one of the aspects of boatwatching, I like.

 The Alpena starts to make the turn in order to approach the cement dock.  I kind of figured this is where I would get some better shots.

 You can see the Federal Cedar in the background (more on her later).

 A puff of smoke as she adjusts her bow thrusters.

 They were letting steam off at the steel mill just as she was pulling into the docks.  It almost looks like it's coming from her stack.

 almost there.

 A shot of her pilothouse.

 I found out about a different spot in Del Ray.  I kind of like it.

 Her flags.

and one more for good measure.