Link Blog – August 29, 2015

Oney’s boat is registered in Delaware, and other cruisers in New York marvelled at how far they had come.“Ah, no, we came all the way from Turkey,” Oney recalled with a laugh.No doubt they met similar amazement on the Great Lakes.They wince that they have “so many places to go but so little time,” Oney said. They would have loved to have lingered longer on Superior. But they did spend three weeks on the lake after passing through the locks at Sault Ste. Marie.

OAK HARBOR, Ohio — Thick mats of algae spreading across western Lake Erie in recent weeks appear to be pushing one of the region’s most-prized sport fish to flee, forcing some charter boat captains to cancel trips. At least one told out-of-state visitors hoping to catch walleye to stay home for now.Fishing guides who make their living on the lake say this year’s algae bloom is quickly rivaling the worst they’ve seen in past years.”There are places out there where it looks like you’re running through green mud,” said Bob Witt, who runs a fleet of charter boats east of Toledo.Scientists tracking the algae said Friday that the heaviest concentration is in the western third of the lake and that there aren’t any blooms in the central or eastern areas near Cleveland or Buffalo, N.Y. The algae forecast in July predicted that this year’s algae could be second only to one in 2011, when the bloom stretched more than 100 miles from Toledo to Cleveland.

As a merchant sailor, he served aboard two smaller ore/coal carriers, the Presque Isle and the Angeline. These were 605-foot-long vessels that could get up the rivers on the Canadian shore of Lake Superior to deliver coal. He said each ship carried a crew of about 35 people from the captain down to the coal bunkers, where a man with a shovel could sweat away 10 pounds a day in the summer.
Ports of call included South Chicago, Port Arthur, Green Bay, Duluth, Superior, Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo.Every port on Lake Erie’s south shore was a coal port where long lines of railroad coal cars had their loads dumped into ships by loaders that rode on rails.Hoffman said the hardest job was cleaning the cargo bays after an ore shipment. Iron ore and coal didn’t mix, and it took fire hoses and hard labor to get the bays clear of the ore.During one summer, Hoffman estimated his freighter would traverse the Sault Ste. Marie Locks once a week.

COPPER HARBOR – The Isle Royale Queen IV, operating out of Copper Harbor, ran aground Tuesday while on an evening cruise. | The U.S. Coast Guard was contacted by the Negaunee dispatch and told that the excursion vessel had run aground inside the harbor. | Lt. J.G. Derek Puzzouli, of the Sault Ste. Marie Coast Guard station, said in response to the call, Guardsmen from Coast Guard Station By the time the crew from Portage reached the scene, the passengers had already been unloaded from the Queen by “Good Samaritans” in the area with boats, Puzzuoli said. | The vessel had run aground on rocks near Porter’s Island, on the north side of the harbor, but its crew was able to get the vessel free without assistance, Puzzuoli said. | The Coast Guard trailered a small boat at the Portage station in Dollar Bay, and launched it from the Copper Harbor marina, Puzzouoli said. | There were no injuries. The Isle Royale Queen suffered no apparent damage in the incident and there was no fuel or oil leakage as a result of the mishap, Puzzuoli said. The Coast Guard remained on the scene to monitor the situation. The incident is under investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Service Unit out of Duluth, which investigates marine accidents.Portage in Dollar Bay were dispatched to the scene.