MIDDLEROUGE

I previously promised a strong start to my 2016 boat-watching adventures. January 16th proved me right. on that day, there were 4 ships making daytime passages of the bluewater area, and i choose to take advantage. First stop: Marine City

My first ship of the Year was the newest on the lakes, Lower Lakes Towing’s Manitoulin.

Originally built as a tanker in 1991 at Uljanik Shipyard in Pula, Croatia, and visited regularly as the A)Treslsi, B)Euro Swan, and C)LaLandia Swan, before being converted to a bulk carrier at Chengxi Shipyards in Jiangyin, China from ’14-’15

of note, the CSL trillium boats were built by Chengxi Shipyards, and Algoma is currently building several equinox class vessels at Uljanik Shipyard.

her forward unloading boom allows her greater flexability at unloading ports compared to other vessels

She is taking her last load of the year, a grain cargo from Thunder Bay, Ontario to Toledo, Ohio, where she would unload over the next few days. She would then head up to Sarnia for winter lay-up.

There’s more to come still! will update next week!

Peir C was where my fun began. There wasn’t much to see on B or D, so i will start here.

Ultimate Joy is an Ocean Alexander yacht. She is registered here in Petoskey, and this happens to be my first time seeing her, so either she is brand new, or was recently purchased by her owners, or it might not be here that often.

The next boat, which is behind Ultimate Joy, is Tresor. She’s registered in Miami, but she might not even go there.

Looking at the above satellite image,that might be her in sturgeon bay, Wisconsin. I’m not 100% certain thats her.

Speaking of which……

There appears to be multiple boats here from sturgeon bay yacht club. however, i will note that there were 4 yachts here with the SBYC Burgee, but two of them had harbor springs as their ports of registry. this all could have something to do with taxes, or the owners residency. I’m not sure however.

One of those is MOJO

the other is Flying Lady

My next stop is peir B. The only intesting thing here is the DNR boat Rick Asher

Pier D was disapointing. nothing big there. just some smaller boats. if you like that, then that’s cool with me.

I’ll leave you here for now. My next stop was the other side of the bay to visit some old friends, and make some new ones.

No rocks to see here….. just some boats. I visited the Petoseky Municipal Marina on July 29, and noticed a few large boats, so i figured it wouldn’t hurt to take some pictures and share some with you

first stop is Pier A. this is where we find the Lifeboat of the cement carrier JB John, a cement carrier that operated out of the Penn-Dixie plant to the west of here, in what is now the village of bay harbor, where many hard working people in emmet county had year round employment. now its home to summer homes of the wealthy.

I tried to get a picture of the plaque here, but the lighting was very crappy. i can tell you that it was donated by the son of the  ships final Chief Engineer, and in 1997, the boat was fully restored.

Her interior doesn’t look like its fared well against northern Michigan winters, and has probably seen better days

This is just Pier A. I still had to visit B,C,and D, So there will be more to come in the near future. I will leave you with a picture of this cute little cabin cruiser.

There are some stones back there, so I guess that kinda fits into the title…….

thats right, after nearly 4 months of this sitting somewhat dormant, I have returned.

along with completing my freshmen year of college, i was working a seasonal job, so my opportunities to go boat watching were almost non-existent. this past week, i however ventured back to northern michigan, where i was able to finally catch some boats. these included 1 salty, 2 thousand footers, 3 classic freighters, 1 730’er a cruise ship, 2 smaller tugs, at least 10 fairly large yachts, numerous smaller craft, and an articulated tug/ barge combo. to put that into perspective, in the previous 7 months, i had only caught 2 ships.

im going to post some teasers now, and will get into more detail later. if you can identify most of the ships here, and the 1 tugboat, then you might get a shout in my next post.

Yet another throwback. this time i share my adventures from Rogers City, Mi

To my suprise, the Tug/Barge combo Defiance and Ashtabula were in port loading stone. I say i was suprised because i almost never go boatwatching because theres a chance to see a particular boat. I like to leave everything to chance. with that said, i dont always see ships when i go boatwatching either.

The Basic Marine tugboat Nickelena must have heard i was coming, and is hiding behind some Air ducts it would take to southern Michigan, which were fabricated by Moran iron works in onaway, mi.

I’m nice,and I don’t bite.

a view of the activity at the port of calcite.

the row of blocks in the previous picture hold a variety of sizes of stone, and signs list the uses for the various sizes.

More to come soon!

Back to harbor springs.

Seaquest was still in town. I don’t think she would leave until just before Labor Day. But some other boats have joined her. The above picture is from the 28. All other photos are from the 30th of July

this is Thunder. she has not 1 or 2, but 5 helm chairs

Palmer Johnson’s captivator

Anna Pointment. Those coordinates would place her homeport in waukegan, Ill.

Hourglass comes from Mattawa, Mi.

Pier Pressure

Wishingstar

I think i will keep it at this. There was a lot more from Harbor Springs from that day that will be saved for another post. the Summer throwback series now has 5 posts, and i could honestly make at least another 3.

You might have noticed a theme here: Boats, Boats, Boats!

If you have read the “About” for this blog, you know this blog is not entirely dedicated to boats. if you didn’t, well this might shock you.

aside from boats, I have a strong passion for running. with that said, here are a few pictures.

On april 12, 2014, I ran my first half marathon. thats 13.1 miles, 21.08 Km, 69217 ft, half the distance from marathon to athens, and what other units of distance you wish to use.

Now there is one thing I must point out. At this time, I was still in High School, and it was the middle of my track season. the following Monday, my coach made me do 13.1 pushups. How does one do .1 push-ups?

for this being my first half marathon, my time and place wasn’t bad. my age group place wasn’t great, but overall, i actually did better than i would have expected. I even predicted i would finish in with a 7:45 mile pace. I was only 26 faster than that.

Fast forward to the last weekend of september 2014. I once again returned to Harbor Springs, for the Little Traverse Half Marathon. This was the second annual running of the event. the previous year i had plans to run it, but shin splints got the best of me and prevented that from happening.

The race started here

went through here

to here, then through Petosky State Park,

finally ending down there.

Now, Harbor Springs and Bay Harbor are less than 3 miles apart. but you have Little traverse bay in the way. This particular race, i made the dumb choice to not train for. I some how finished in 1:52, and finished 1st in my age group. going back downstate the next day was terrible, however. that is not something that i plan to do again in the near future.

With that said, The KLAA track season starts on Tuesday, March 31st. Best of luck to all athletes this season.

Some more from the Soo. these images were taken from the valley camp

the Norgoma is former Georgian Bay ferry turned museum ship in the Canadian Sault. her future doesn’t look too bright

Nor does the Yancanucks future either.

the Reliance and Avenger IV don’t see as much use now as they once did, but are still used when needed

Anna Marie Altman, Sioux, and Either WJ Ivan Purvis, or WI Scott Purvis, as well as a landing craft, and a trawler type pleasure craft in the back.

after leaving the soo, we ventured about 2 hours west to Grand Marias,MI. Not much to see there, the big boats don’t come around here much. but there is a lighthouse. 2 actually. and an eroding sand dune.

then, we went 50 miles south, and another 30 miles west, to Manistique,MI. there was one yacht here, and several fishing tugs, so i had to photograph them.

this was a LONG day. we didn’t arrive back in Pellston, which is 20 miles south of Mackinaw, until about 11:00 pm, thanks to stops at a natural spring, and the Cut River Bridge, and Bridgeview Park in St. Ignace. I didn’t take any more good photos, so i will close out with the manistique pier light.

Yesterday I happened to be downriver, so I figured I might as well go out and catch my first ships of 2015, the Algosea and Alpena at ecorse’s john dingell park. This was my first time there.

since I have seen Algosea almost every time I’ve ventured up to the Bluewater region, I didn’t bother to take a lot of pictures of her

She has been taking cargos across Lake Erie to naticoke all winter. Now why did I come here today?

Ah, it’s the Alpena. The oldest operating vessel on the lakes since last spring. Originally named the Leon Fraser, she is the last of the US Steel AA “super” class of lakers. In 1991, she was reduced from her original size by 120′ and converted to a cement carrier.

she is passing between fighting island and mud island, and is heading to her namesake port.

i couldn’t miss the fact that for it being only the second full day of spring, the fishermen were out in their little boat today. It was 35* outside when this was taken.

that wraps up this post. As I post this, Alpena has already turned around, and has arrived in Detroit to unload powdered cement.