The saga begins......:o) " Sleep Deprivation Part 1 ...or the BZZ BZZZ BZZZ story"

( click images for larger view)camera kodak digital

So, finally the day came when Anders called and said there was a schedule maybe we could work with. He gave me my "ETA" for Nanticoke so as always I wrote in on the calendar......... The date I would board the ship would be August 23 at 6Pm. Oh,.... no wait, make that August 24th at 3Pm, no,..... wait, make that August 24th at 7Pm..by this time I told him..."you know I bet, more than anything that I'll be getting on that ship in the middle of the night, sometime after 1am"....hmmmm what do they say? That women have some kind of perception? :o) So then it came to August 25th at 1AM. ( I love it when I'm right...ha ha). So when August 25th came I gathered up our Doggies and took them down to see their friends Monica and Linda. Its great because our boys love going to visit them at "camp"!

So I was all packed and ready to go of course, then I spent the day mowing the yard and doing some last minute gardening, then took a nap ...yeah right..like I could sleep...I TRIED to take a nap so I wouldn't be exhausted when I finally got aboard the ship. I stayed up late that night thinking I'd be getting called but was pretty tired so ended up trying to get some sleep ..didn't do much good though! Hard to sleep when you've got butterfly's bouncing around inside of you!! I got my 1 hour notice call at 2AM...hmmm seems as though another ship was docking at the East dock so Anders had to wait for him to park his boat before the Algolake "Coolbeans" could park too. So I gathered up my things and headed off to the ship about 1/2 hour later, as it takes me about 20 minutes to drive to the Hydro Plant from home. I got to the plant and checked in with the security gate. I had to wait in the parking lot awhile as I got there early..hmmm Anders says I have no patience ...I used to though ...People used to tell me..."Donna, you've got the patience of a Saint" course that was back when I ran a daycare for a living and people threatened to paint my suburban yellow and black because I was always running around with so many kids ....I don't know what happened to that patience ..could it be because I married a Sailor guy??!! ha ha

Its 3:45 Am when I'm still sitting in the parking lot at Nantiocoke, I can't even see the ship from here which drives me totally nuts. Finally they motion to me that its okay to drive down there, and there is Anders standing on the dock waiting, even now as I am typing this it makes me smile thinking about seeing him. :o) We unloaded all my stuff from the car and drove back down to the gate to park the car in the lot , then got a ride back down to the dock with a taxi coming for one of the crew members who was going home. Lucky him!! By 5Am we were all settled and needless to say I was almost asleep standing up so we went to bed to get some sleep, just remember the unloading gear is right in front of Anders room....rrr rrr rrr rrr rr rrr ...actually it is fairly loud but it did put me to sleep until that dang phone next to his bed rang.. BZZZ BZZZZ BZZZ!!! Look ed at the clock.....oh cool we got to sleep for 3 whole hours!! Here we go again!! We got up and Anders went right to work doing his Captain guy stuff at his desk, amazing now how many forms he has to do just to clear his ship for each port he goes to. Gone are the days of putting his feet up and relaxing when he's on a short run. That will only happen on Lake Superior now pretty much. While he was working I went up to the wheelhouse to warm up some water for COFFEE. There was a little Fog on the lake and the Tanker was still there next to us. To close to get a full shot of him but I did what I could. :o)

Okay so I got the back end and the front...you try to imagine the middle! ( Oh and by the way seeing as though my site is now on a different server you can now click on these pictures to see the larger image). My stomach was growling so the two of us went down to scrounge around in the galley for some left over breakfast, since we missed it. There's always a few things down there egg sandwiches, muffins, fruit , works for me! We had company when we went back upstairs ( another subject I hope I don't forget to discuss with you. :o) The Canadian Marsak Guy came down to inspect the safety procedures for the Ship and Dock. He discussed things with Anders for awhile then went to inspect the ship with one of the crew members. This is just another change in the security system since 911. After lunch we went up to the wheelhouse and we were heading out on the lake around 1pm.

Anders went down and wrote some night orders. By this time, that 3 hours I got of sleep last night was starting to hit me and Anders too so we decided to take a nap. We are heading to Sandusky, Ohio. ( photo shows a diving tug that was working out on the Lake prior to our departure)

The Walter J McCarthy was waiting ready to take our spot at the dock.

We had a nice sleep going across the lake, course I love sleeping on the ship, the motion, and the sounds to me are so very relaxing. Course and finally being next to the man I love sure helped too...:o) We got up around 7:30 that night and Anders tells me we are going to stay up until we get to Sandusky now...when is that? 2AM. Well ...we couldn't do it, even though we tried! Took a nap around 10:30 and I was so sound asleep when BZZZZ BZZZZZ BZZZZZ there goes that dang buzzer again. 1 hour to the Sandusky Piers, time to get up and get ready to go to work.

We showered and went up to the wheelhouse. Which takes awhile for your eyes to adjust to since its really dark up there so that they can see out the windows clearly. We were listening to the coast guard on the radio talking with some Yacht on the lake that was taking on water through a port hole, guess the eastern end of Lake Erie was stormy tonight. Never did get to hear what happened but I read on the news that they were all okay. Anders says they hear alot of distress calls on the radio to the coast guard.

So we are approaching Sandusky Piers, Cedar Point is quiet tonight, no loud screams coming from all the enormous roller coasters they have there. Anders gave them all a salute anyhow figured he was awake why not let others enjoy the early morning as well. :o) There is a long channel here with several turns in it that Anders has to negotiate in order to get to the dock. I told Anders when he entered in it that it reminded me of that movie "Hunt for Red October" when the submarine was entering some channel under water and they had a stop watch etc to time when to make the turns. Not what happens here but somewhat similar channel, minus the torpedoes. :o)Anyway if you go out of this channel, your in trouble as there is no water for a ship for sure! Once we get to the dock, Anders has to turn the ship around 180 degrees so that she's facing out. Now that sounds pretty easy in our little car but this is a 730' ship and I'm not sure how much clearance there was on each end but it didn't LOOK like much. Its alot of fun spinning around though even though its done very slowly and carefully. By the time the ship was tied up at the dock it was 4AM. Customs and Immigration Boarded to clear the ship and me.

Then we got to get a few more precious hours of sleep! Now we are sitting at the dock and its quiet now while we are sleeping and I just realize that Anders told me earlier that the air conditioning system wasn't working. I don't know exactly what the temperature was outside but remember we are in a Big HUGE steel box ...believe me..it was stinking hot in there! We actually opened the windows and left them opened which since I've been going on the ship is something that they never do. After our nap I hung around watching the ship being loaded while Anders did some more paperwork and I headed up to the Wheelhouse to check out the ship getting loaded.

While I was up there the Adam E. Cornelius arrived and started heading down the channel to wait to load after we were done. It was interesting to watch his approach to turing in the basin compared to the way Anders did it. This guy actually put the bow of the ship on the wall and turned it. Where Anders just turned in the middle of the channel. Neither guy was wrong just a different way of doing things, I just found it interesting ..course from these pictures if I didn't tell you different you would think they were of a ship that hit the wall..:o)

While all this was going on I was watching the ship being loaded as well. They hadn't filled the silos for us so the ship was being loaded by them dumping railroad cars. First we looked down and saw all the cars that were going to be loaded on the ship. Wow...they would pull through a few into this building and through this gateway. Then this little train engine would

come and hitch on to one of the cars and pull it , or push it however you want to

look at it...:o) Until it came to the bottom of the hill in front of the loader. Then it would get pulled up the hill on some sort of pulley.

When it got to the top of the hill, it hits the other car that has already been unloaded and pushes it out of the way.

At that point the unloader starts lifting the car up , hard to get a picture of this as once it starts it goes pretty fast.

Then the car is dumped into the unloader with a big BANG!

Then it goes in the cargo hold of the ship. The ship gets shifted back according to a load plan written up by the first mate and approved by the Captain guy. They have to load the ship the right way or it will bend in the middle or tilt to one side or the other or down to far in front. ( there are technical terms for all that but I'm not a sailor...:o) Anyhow, they also have to keep a close eye out on the weather, as with wind changes so changes the depth of the water and they don't want to hit bottom either! Lots to think about while loading a ship! Okay back to the loading process... After the train car is emptied it goes back down to the bottom of the load rig and gets pushed off by the next train car. When it pushes it, the car goes up this hill and when it comes back down it goes off on another track and all by itself goes probably 500 feet until it hits something that makes it put its brakes on, then it continues on a bit slower until you hear a bit BANG! when it hits the train car in front of it that was unloaded prior to . Its pretty interesting really I watched it for quite sometime. Like watching my brothers model railroad that I used to play with... ( and get in trouble to from what I remember!!! )

At one point while we were up in the wheelhouse Anders noticed that the Seaway flag was looking a bit shabby so he went down and got a new one and I helped him out by showing him how to tie up a flag...:o)

This is a photo of a couple of the guys putting the clamps back on the hatch covers. Before we can leave all the hatches have to be on and secured. It was nice hanging around in the wheelhouse because it has its own air conditioning...:o) But later on since we were going to be there another 6 hours or so we decided to take a short walk into town. We were thinking we' ld go check out the boats at the Marina. Ohio Bob wasn't around though as he and Tiffany were off crusin around on "Just another Grand" , but we thought we' ld go see what kind of boats we could see over there anyway.

So we walked over there and pretty much it sounded like if you weren't a member to stay out so we found a place to sit and have a cool drink then headed back. This is the train that pulled the big line of cars around when they needed them moved.

Anders thought I should photograph the line of trains from the tracks, so I agreed and thought it would make a good photo. Well while I was standing there all of a sudden we heard the big BANG of a train car hitting the others and that line in the middle started moving so I ran off the tracks fast! Anders was laughing really hard at me and so then he made this imitation of me , so I took his photo doing it to get him back ..ha ha He calls it my chicken Dance I think...??

He's just plain silly , good thing I love him ...:o)

The Adam E. was bringing on some heavy equipment which took a big crane! It also gives you a perspective on just how big these ships are when you compare it to that "little " truck on the left.

And then when we got to the end of the railroad cars there she was ..waiting for Anders to come back to take care of her. The other woman...:o) Course I have to share my husband with her 6 months out of the year. Some people just don't' understand the life we lead. Its different for sure! But Anders loves what he does and he's darn good at it so I'll sit and keep the home fires burning and count the days and minutes and seconds for him to return..:o)

When we got back to the ship we had some dinner and Anders finished up some paperwork he had to do. Finally left Sandusky around 9PM that night. After 295 railroad cars of coal had been loaded on the ship.

It was amazing that going through that channel again at times we only have about 2 1/2' of water under the ship! Amazing that it will float and move with water that shallow ...Anders kept the speed way down to be sure we got out safely , we were out on Lake Erie again around 10:30 that night and we went to bed to get some sleep it would be a long night in the Welland Canal tomorrow night. We got up the next morning around 7:30..that was a nice nights sleep that we for sure needed. We had a nice breakfast downstairs in the galley with the Chief.

There is always a chart of our voyage on the chart table, and it is marked every hour or so exactly where we are. I always love watching Anders when he changes the standard courses because of weather. Its really interesting, its for sure not just drawing a line with a ruler......:o)

We got to Port Colburne Piers at 2:00Pm that afternoon.

These ships are on the east wall of the canal ..I think that they are scrapped there. Thought it would make a nice photo though.

Photo to left show the water that washes out of the cort nozzle while we are underway..the water from Lake Erie...its so pretty..!

Standing on the bridge deck looking at those big stacks!

These photos are just more of the sites around Port Colburne. Its actually quite nice from up here 9 stories up..:)

Story continues on the next page

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