The John J. Boland Passes the William Clay Ford Pilothouse

I was going to go to the Eastern Michigan basketball game yesterday but the sun was shining and it looked like a fairly busy day on the river.  I decided to start out at Belle Isle.

The Dossin Museum of the Great Lakes is roughly in the middle of the park.  It has several artifacts of the Great Lakes but one of the neatest is where I was taking pictures from.  This is the pilothouse from the William Clay Ford.

 The William Clay Ford is the ship that was in safe anchorage on the night that the Edmund Fitzgerald went down.  After some pleading by the Coast Guard, she left the safe anchorage and went to help the Arthur Anderson look for survivors from the Fitzgerald.  After a few more years of service, the Ford was scrapped but they managed to save her pilothouse.  While it would be cool to have the whole ship, the pilothouse works.

 A shot from one of the windows.  I had to do a little modifying so it looked like I was out on the water.

 Looking out the front of the pilothouse as the Boland passes by.

 Now as for the Boland, she had a delivery to Detroit and was on her way to Calcite to pick up a load of stone for somewhere.

 She continues up the river and as you can see, it was a beautiful day.

One more shot of her before moving on.