I was a bit starved for boats this weekend, but on a rainy Sunday evening I was finally able to make it down to the river and see something.
My first stop was Belle Isle, for just the second time so far this season. For some reason, the Livingstone Light isn’t turned on.
It was extremely windy out there (what else is new), so I had my back turned while waiting for the ship. So I noticed this tree.
Ah, there it is.
It’s the Algoma Enterprise, and something looks a little different about her this Spring…
New paint would be correct! After 35 straight years of Upper Lakes Shipping black, the Enterprise was given her first coat of Algoma blue over the Winter.
Take a look here and decide which Enterprise you prefer.
She was built in 1979 in the same place where she got this coat of paint – Port Weller Drydocks in St. Catharines, ON. Although now, the drydocks are for sale, and Algoma leased them temporarily so that the Enterprise could get a Winter refit.
Now, the only active ships still wearing ULS black are the Algoma Navigator and John D. Leitch. I’m not sure if either of them will ever see a coat of blue, though.
Anyhow, that’s all for the Enterprise‘s appearance here at Belle Isle. But I had some technical issues while getting bow shots, so I feel the need to double her up.
That means I’m stopping at Riverside Park. Watching from the sidelines is the Federal Yukon, as she unloads at the Detroit Marine Terminal.The Joseph H. Thompson is refueling at Mistersky on the left. The tug Dorothy Ann is barely visible even further to the left.
The Yukon is my second salty of the year, but I haven’t seen one moving yet.
The Ambassador Bridge is bustling with a busy flow of traffic, after experiencing a camper fire earlier in the week.
The old Detroit News Paper Warehouse is a building I have not shot before. Well there it is.
Now here comes the ship.
And you know what that means… it’s mail time.
Here’s the angle I was trying to get at Belle Isle. I’ve always preferred Belle Isle, but the angles at Riverside are slightly better.
The J.W. Westcott II is a vessel I haven’t seen in a while, since I don’t stop at Riverside often during the season.
After another successful delivery, the Westcott heads back to the dock.
The mailboat received a refit over the Winter as well, and looks fantastic.
It doesn’t look like the stacks were repainted with the hull, but the stack gets dirty easily anyway.
The handsome vessel is on her way to Bath, Ontario with a load of either coal or petroleum coke from Chicago.
And off she goes, and that’s all the action I got yesterday.
Hopefully I’ll have a bit more to show for myself next weekend, but this has been fun.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Generic License.
Filed under: Algoma Central, FedNav Ltd., VanEnkevort Tug and Barge Tagged: Algoma Enterprise, Federal Yukon, Joseph H. Thompson, Joseph H. Thompson Jr.
