Up Close and Personal

Welcome to Post Three from Day One of my four day trip that took place earlier this week! As you can tell, this will be a long saga (will probably take at least two weeks to get through all of it and to do it proper justice). I left off with the Victorious and John J. Carrick heading for Lock Eight in Port Colborne, Ontario. Then I had dinner, and after that, I headed over to Wharf 12 to see what was going on.

Sitting there is the barge St. Marys Cement II and her loyal tug Sea Eagle II.

This lovely pair is loaded with cement for Cleveland, but after several rainstorms, the currents there are too strong to dock, so they are waiting it out here.

This pair is owned by St. Marys Cement and operated by Fettes Shipping. They load in Bowmanville, Ontario and unload in Toronto, Cleveland, Toledo, and Detroit.

Her Toronto, Cleveland, and Toledo runs are with powdered cement, but her Detroit runs are with cement clinker, and she uses this self-unloading boom to discharge it.

While very functional and useful, she is considered by boatwatchers to be one of the homeliest things on the Great Lakes.

The Sea Eagle II is an articulated tug boasting 7,200 horsepower.

She does not appear to be rigged for towing, not surprisingly.

She is a nice-looking tug, despite normally being hidden by her barge.

So that was all for my short visit with this busy pair. They didn’t stick around too much longer after this.

For my final boat of the evening, I head to the approach wall above Lock Eight to meet the Algomarine.

The 730 foot long ship is carrying a load of sand to Hamilton. She also has a nice new coat of paint on the bow.

My second-favorite ship, the Algomarine was built in 1968 in Lauzon, Quebec as the Lake Manitoba.

She was converted to a self-unloader in the late 1980s after coming to Algoma, and now keeps busy in the salt and aggregate trades.

This approach wall has no fences, so I was able to get within a few feet of the ship and get some great detail shots. I don’t know what these are for, though.

These three crewmembers, ready to go ashore on the bosun’s chair, were the ones who painted the bow the week before. Thanks guys, it looks great!

The Marine is one of the oldest ships still running in the Algoma fleet, yes still remains busy every season as her career winds down.

Her name is proudly displayed on her hatch cover.

After the bow, which is freshly painted, the rest of the ship looks a little worse for the wear.

Water runoff from on deck was coming through here.

Her self-unloading tower dominates her stern area.

This is my first time seeing the Algomarine on the canal since 2013, when she was at Wharf 12 for repairs.

This man told me that they had ordered some more paint and planned to touch up more of the hull soon. More good news.

Finally, her stern gets to my spot after a slow ride down the approach wall.

She has horns on the self-unloading tower, although I don’t know if they’re her main pair or not.

Behind that is her actual stern, complete with stack and lifeboat.

It’s nice to see boats still carrying the classic lifeboat.

The ship has moved her stern off of the approach wall. The wall is used to guide the ship into the lock with ease.

It looks like they slapped some new paint on her stern as well. Maybe that’s where they will start once they get some more.

Since her stern was off the wall, I could pick up some nice stern shots here.

I couldn’t get any shots like this on any of the other occasions that we’ve met on the canal, so this was helpful.

And then, I walked back up to the bow (she was going very slowly) and took another shot, then called it a day.

So, that’s it for the first day of my trip. I will continue to go two boats at a time, although some posts (like this one) may be around 30 photos. I’m trying to make sure nothing is left out, while giving the full effect of boatwatching at the canal. Hopefully it’s working.

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