Another Boat Tour and a Special Ship

Location: Northland Camping and RV Park; Superior, Wisconsin (el. 680 ft)

Pictures taken with Nokia Lumia Icon Cell Phone and a Canon Point and Shoot

Current Route

First, notice the two cameras. My Nokia cell phone is beginning to let me down after almost five years of flawless service. The battery has started draining quickly so I took a back-up camera with me yesterday. On the Apostle Islands tour, it wanted to shut down due to low battery before the tour was over. It makes me sad since the phone has done a great job of being my camera, phone, texting, internet and hot spot for so long. Of course, I thought I would just replace it in kind and get another one. Nope, they don't make them anymore. It seems Windows phones are being eliminated from the market. My guess is since they were so good and I had one, the market said lets mess with Goza and eliminate them. Anyway, I may be able to get a refurbished one or a completely different kind of phone. I really don't want an iphone, so I guess I'll look at one of those that is run by robot, android something or other. Some people have falsely accused me of not liking change. If Windows 95 was still around, well, you know. 

My exploration plan yesterday was to drive up the lake front toward the town of Two Harbors. I thought since it was a Saturday, any formal touring, like the harbor boat tour would be super busy. As I approached Duluth, I checked the weather and storms were predicted for the early afternoon. That was fine with me since I would be driving and could simply pull over until they passed. But then I had another thought, maybe the storms would chase away all the people from the boat tour. Uhmm. The timing was right for the boat tour so I took that as a sign and headed there instead of up the coast. After five dollars to park Freedom and a $23.00 dollar boarding ticket away we went. The tour takes you under the vertical lift bridge and out into Lake Superior for a couple of miles before turning around and going back into the harbor. It takes you around the harbor and explains several of the things going on, such as loading operations. Duluth is still a busy port and routinely ships grain, iron ore/taconite and coal. These things are brought in by rail then shipped out or shipped in and railed out. It's a continuous process. I wished the narrator on the tour would have been a little more informative but she did OK. This tour was only 1 hour, 45 minutes. Comparing the two boat tours, this one was twice as good and half the price.

I had to park across the canal and use the pedestrian bridge.

The pedestrian bridge is a draw bridge. That is the bridge tender house on the right.

The pedestrian bridge is lifted to let them boats come and go. The big one is moored there permanently and is used for tours. 

Going under the bridge on the way out to the Lake

The view going into the harbor from the Lake. Many ships have passed through this point over the years. The lighthouse on each side help guide the ships at night and in bad weather.

Just a couple of the many loading/unloading facilities in the harbor. Generally, a ship will moor alongside and cargo will be loaded or unloaded by conveyor.

One of the ship being loaded. This one was being loaded with coal, probably railed in from Wyoming. Notice the white conveyor. It is part of the ship so it can load and unload by itself. Older ships that lack that ability are being scrapped because it limits where they can load/unload. 

The bigger bridge is the I-535, bridge. The smaller one on the lower right is a peice of the old bridge.

The workhorses of any harbor, The Tug Fleet. Duluth has four working tugs. These three are waiting while the fourth was working somewhere. The harbor is useless without these babies.

One of the interesting things in the harbor is an old boat that is tied up permanently while awaiting decisions from its owner as to what to do with it. The ships name is the Arthur M. Anderson. That name probably doesn't mean a lot to most people until it is tied with the Edmond Fitzgerald. You see, it was the Anderson that was sailing with the Fitzgerald when she sank within miles of the protection of Whitefish Bay. They both had been fighting the weather during the trip as immortalized in Gordon Lightfoots' lyrics, "when the gales of November come early". There were steady winds of near 60 mph with 30 foot average wave heights. The Anderson reported two rogue waves that hit her from astern and swept over the entire length of the ship. If they had hit her broadside they may have broken her in two or simply capsized her. After the Anderson lost sight of the Fitzgerald, visually and on radar, she continued into the protection of Whitefish Bay. As the Captain and crew of the Anderson were wiping their brows and saying, 'whew, we made it', the Coast Guard called and requested they go back out to search for the Fitzgerald. To go back into a storm that had already sank one ship and nearly their own?? As any other ship and crew would do, they didn't think twice. They went back and only found pieces of wreckage but not survivors of the Fitzgerald. This ship, the S.S. Arthur M. Anderson, is patiently waiting in Duluth harbor for a decision from its owner as to it's fate. If I was the owner, I would sail her or tow her to the place where the Fitzgerald went down and sink her there. The two were tied together on that fateful night, perhaps they should rest together as well.

The S.S. Arthur M. Anderson waiting to find out her fate. It's sad in a way, knowing her history, but silly in another way since it is just a ship. Maybe that silliness comes from the many years I served on board my Navy ship. Strange.  

The following link is to my blog post when I visited the museum at Whitefish Point and saw the bell from the Edmond Fitzgerald. It is worth the trip.

http://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2014/08/new-campground-and-great-lakes.html



The weather around Duluth is strange. The temperature is always about 5 degrees cooler than the campground which is only about 10 miles away. I'm guess the high bluffs and lake cause that effect. Thunderstorms have been popping up regularly with the threat of hail thrown in for good measure. If you're outside, you can tell about 10 minutes or so before the storm hits because the temperature will drop very quickly. I've seen this in the Rockies and elsewhere, but it seems different around here. So far, none of the storms have bothered me. Hoping for calm and cool weather when I pull out of here on the morning of the 5th. 

After I post this, I think I'll make the trip up the coast that I planned yesterday before getting sidetracked with the harbor tour. Of course it just started raining without warning, so we will see.

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.