Page 2 - Sleep Deprivation part one ..oh yes there will be more I'm sure...:o)

This is the Bridge right before Lock 8 in Port Colburne, another one of those aerial jobs like in Duluth..:o) Green light on the center of the bridge means is okay to go under it ..There is another bridge after the lock so people in town can get around without having to wait in a long line of traffic waiting for a ship to pass. There were several tugs there tied up to the west wall of the canal. The houses look so small from way up here and the underneath of the bridge looked so Close!!! :o)

Entering Lock 8 --- Coming up to lock 8 way up there in the first photo..we are going to fit in there?? And as we get closer it doesn't help my perspective of it at all..:o) But of course we fit in ..I think there is 2 feet of space on either size of the ship once she's in there although it doesn't seem like it. The Atlantic Erie was coming up right behind us still.

We took on a big Truckload of supplies in lock 8 and it was nice to see an air conditioning repair guy come aboard too! some of the crew got off here to go home or do errands etc. then they 'ld get back on later on further down the canal.

Photo shows how they get supplies on the ship , bringing it up in a basket with a crane lift off the deck of the ship. There's the Park in Port Colburne.. Nice spot actually, I was reminding Anders how many times I've visited there waiting for "my ship to come in"...:o) The other photo is the gears that actually make the lock wall open and shut..they are pretty big!

These guys were riding the trail that goes along the east side of the canal, I think it must of been one of those rent a horse things because the majority of them didn't know how to ride. It was nice seeing the horses though. Would of been such a pretty picture but its really hard to zoom in on something that far away and take a good clear shot when your on a moving ship!

This still gives me the creeps going under this bridge. 4 years ago or so the bridge came down before a ship had cleared and ripped the after housing right off the ship. They said it was operator error. Now the bridge is run with a remote control from Welland Traffic Center..but it still feels weird going under it.

The bridge opened really early for us this time and I bet alot of these people were getting really tired of waiting! :o) The cars were lined up even over the horizon farther than we could even see! Ooops!! Sorry!! hee hee

After going through Lock 8 the long stretch between until Lock 7 is called the level, and its a long space when your going this way its not so bad but going the other way..oh I don't' look forward to it if we come back in the middle of the night ..usually puts me to sleep...:o) Here we are approaching Lock 7, the gates are opened and they are ready for the ship to enter. In the distance you can see Lock 6 right ahead.

After the ship has lowered enough to be level with the water level in front of the lock they open the gates and off we go! This is the Inn at Lock 7 there were a few people there waving and one guy showed us he was drinking a beer! Poor Anders no beer for him!

Here we are entering Lock 6, the CSL Assiniboine was entering the west side , its always interesting to me when your in the flight locks beside another ship and your going down they are going up! Pretty much like really big stairs!

Assiniboine enters the lock and then they start raising him and lowering us.

He's slowly going up so we are seeing more and more of the bow of the ship. Til finally they head out towards Lock 7 and we head down to lock 5 which is right in front of us. Wheels man doesn't even need to steer as lock 4 , 5, and 6 are connected.

We seem way up high from here! Ahead of us in the distance is the Queen Elizabeth Way skyway bridge one of the major highways in Ontario.

It was a CSL kinda night, but then soon became and Algoma night, even heard one of the pilots joking about it.:o) This is the CSL Niagara we are meeting in Lock 5. Its just starting to get dark now so everyone is turning on the their lights so the crew doesn't get hurt on deck. Plus they look nice too..:o)

You can sure tell how big this Puppy is from this photo!!

Here's my sailor guy working. Looks like it from this photo anyway...:o)

Nothing too exciting happening in the canal seeing as though alot of it was at night so it didn't do me any good to take photos. I think it was lock two where there was some salty in the lock coming out and we were going in....its the weirdest thing because looking at it , the salty seems to be not moving and yet we are...and getting closer and closer...Anders was laughing at me because I kept saying.."Is he moving?? Is he moving??" ha ha Yeah , he moved and of course no problems at all..:o) That's him in the photo, also shows why I didn't take any more photos in the canal that night! :o)

We finally got clear of the Canal out at Port Weller at 12:30Am the next morning ,at least the trip went along with out any delays, some times depending on the timing , ships have to tie up to the walls to wait for other ships to pass.We went down to take a nap as soon as we cleared the piers and BZZZ BZZZZ BZZZZZ!!! Yep there it is one hour later time to get up and bring the ship through the Burlington Piers, the Canadian Transport is still unloading where we need to be so Anders is going to anchor in the harbor to wait. I guess we have to be inside the harbor so that we can be "in line". So he anchored the ship now its 3:30AM, lets try for the nap again... BZZZ BZZZZ BZZZZZ !!!!! Yep now its 4:30am..The Canadian Transport is leaving , now Anders can bring the ship into the dock. Okay, one more time...can I sleep now??? Get to bed at 6:00 Am and for some reason we got up at 11:30..and went down for lunch ...course I want breakfast because it feels like first thing in the morning and no problem toast and fruit it is!

This is a photo of the Burlington Bridge the tall span is solid and that's the Queen Elizabeth Parkway that is going over it. The other bridge is an aerial bridge like in Duluth and Anders has to radio for the operator to open it.

Lots of these around ..just thought it was a cool photo.

There were also alot of sailboats in the harbor today, seemed to be a nice little sailboat breeze happening...:o)

I thought this was ..hmmm interesting. Even here at a steel plant , they try to make the water front look nice. They have planted trees along the bank, there were a group of people out there caring for them,pretty nice actually.

Mighty big coal pile!

Here is Anders with AB Tom waiting for the word that we are ready to go. Toms a nice guy, he always brings cookies up to the wheelhouse for me..and he's got a cool hat he wears sometimes..ha ha

We left the dock at 3:45 that afternoon , went down to take a nap since we' ld be up all night in the canal... BZZZ BZZZ BZZZZ !!!! yep, 4:45....another hour..well better than nothing I guess!! We we at the piers around 5:15 later on.

Canadian Coast Guard Base, see they are making dinner!

Here we are heading for Lock 1 , actually got a few groceries on the wall before we got there. Anders slowed the ship down and they lowered the basket and the grocery guy just put um in and that was that!

Have no idea what kind of birds these were but there were hundreds of them there... Theresa??

Here we are sliding the wall to lock 1, It looks strange to me ! The bow of the ship is on the wall sliding up and the wheels man is keeping the ship in line with the wall and wallah! in she goes! I named the linesmen at the Locks Frank and Gordon because they reminded me of Bell Canada's mascots...:o)

Canada's obsession with Hockey.... so much so that they play in the summer under the lights!! Its called Ball Hockey and they run around ..its really popular I guess. There was a big game going on when we went by, we could hear the cheering !!!

This is pretty much my view for the rest of the evening...if you can figure this out..This is a photo of the flight locks. I thought the reflections were kinda neat so I included it even though its sorta unrecognizable! We were at the fuel dock in Port Colburne at 3:30Am , soooo of course lets go take a nap, Chief says we'll be here for 3 hours its worth it. BZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!! ...What time is it?? oh.. 5AM...oh that's nice....but luckily taking the ship from the fuel dock through the piers doesn't take long at all. We were back down sleeping again at 6:00 an hour later.

When I woke up, I could feel the ships motion a bit more than before which I really like! It was 11:00AM we went up to the wheelhouse to see what was going on. Anders checks with the mate up there to see what the wind direction was etc and says well..that settles it no way we are getting into Ashtabula with this wind from this direction. Plus he found out the Canadian Transport was already anchored there for weather and so we would have to wait for them too. The photo doesn't do the waves justice, its so hard to photograph them 9 stories up. I even went down to the Poop deck and tried and they still didn't show up as big as they were. about 10' they said.

Anders was busy so we had lunch in the wheelhouse. After lunch we were getting close to Ashtabula and he calls down to the galley and tells them to secure all their stuff. Also talked to the mate to have him get things secured on deck. He said when he turns the ship into the wind to anchor off the piers there is a good chance she's going to roll a bit. When he was ready to make the course alteration he made an announcement over the loud speaker for the whole ship to tell everyone to be prepared for a bit of a roll. It was really exciting really . I was standing next to the AB ready to hang on to the bar around around the steering stand. :o)

The best way I can explain what happened is the pictures..it wasn't as bad as I was expecting or As Anders thought it might be , but it was good for everyone to be prepared. The photo shows the best I can how the ship moved. I was standing in the same place and never moved the camera. The Canadian Transport and the horizon moved a bit though! :o) Up and Down , Up and Down..hee hee fun!

By the time we got Anchored there were 5 of us out there hanging on "the Pick" ( Sailor Guy talk) ha ha The Canadian Transport, The Paul Martin, and the St. Clair and the McCarthy! Not much we could do now but we were talking about what we were going to do once we got to in to Ashtabula, I guess Anders Agent was going to take us out to eat, we talked about going for a walk and going to the mall, but by 6pm the weather was still going strong and we were really tired from the short naps we had been having so decided to get some sleep. Anders left his night orders like always and I knew if they needed him I' ld hear that dang buzzer again. But we got lucky , nothing happened and we got to sleep all night! So , when we got up at 6AM the next morning , course we went right up to the wheelhouse to see what was going on. the Canadian Transport had finally got into the dock around 8:30 last night , the Paul Martin around midnight. We were still going to have to wait longer for the Transport to get loaded and then the Martin is shifting over to the coals dock . So there's some calling being done by Anders to be sure that when the Transport is finished that he can go in there to load before the Martin. That is all arranged , phone calls are made to assure everyone that indeed the Algolake will take the next spot in line at the coal dock.So Anders has to pick up Anchor in order to be next in line, guess you can't be anchored and save a spot here, have to be underway. Well, after "driving" around in circles for a couple hours , the phone rings. Change in orders! Lambton has no room right now for more coal so they are sending us somewhere else ..but don't know where yet! So there goes my dinner out, my trip to the mall and my walk with my husband! The picture above is as close to Ashtabula as I got!! ha ha bye Ashtabula!! So we leave its 10:00AM on Wednesday the 30th heading towards South East Shoals but have no idea where we are going from there. Hmm reminds me of yet another movie. Star Wars when Hans, Luke, Chewie and Leia are flying towards the Death Star waiting for clearance to go the planet Endor and Hans says to Chewie "I don't know Chewie just fly casual"..ha ha So here we are "Sailing" Casual. ( I put Sailing in " " because I still don't get why they call it Sailing when you don't have SAILS!! ) I constantly harass Anders about that..ha ha

Photo shows arriving at South East Shoals, you can see its still a Tad windy, the water was still choppy. Scary thing is if we are going up the river we might need another nap as it would be another all nighter...hmm

Okay so by 11:00Am that night we get the update..we are going to Thunder bay, so we are definitely going to need a nap. So we had some lunch and then we slept til 3PM, when we get up Anders says "Well , we are up til 4AM now" - I said "Some vacation! " ha ha ha It was a nice afternoon on the Lake , we went down later and had dinner with the Chief then soon after Anders had to go to work.

When we got up to the wheelhouse, this is what I saw out the window. Course I took like 20 shots of this setting alone. I was in awe of this big cloud with the sun and the water ...makes me feel so small. The beauty out there is something that one person can't explain in a photography, or in a word. But the photo is the best I can do.

This is Detroit River light, where Anders heads the ship up into the river to the start of our long night ahead!

So as we start the turn , who do we see coming towards us? Its the Misabi Miner! Well, so I tell Anders that Tricia's husband Tom is on there, so he calls the Captain to ask if he's still aboard. Yep, he's there and he's the Chief , Cool beans for Tom! So Anders sends along his greetings then the two ships Salute each other and Tom came out to wave Hello too!! Awesome! Sorry I couldn't get more of a close up Tricia, hard with the ships moving to zoom in alot....it was awesome to be able to wave hello though!

The Sun was already to go down when we got into the river, we saw the Algo cape heading toward us and again, Salutes were shared. The Captain comes out to wave and we see that its our friend Danny! So he and Anders share a few stories on the radio while we continue on our way.

The river was pretty quite that night, the Algocape was the only ship we passed for the whole trip. I still don't see how Anders gets the ship up and down the river in the pitch dark, oh and it was pitch dark, no moon, and cloudy skies..Sure there are those green and Rid lights but oh my they are EVERYWHERE! They look like a big ol' maze to me! I had a card I wanted to mail at the Detroit Post Office. So Anders called the Westcott to tell them when we' ld be up there and then they 'ld be ready to meet us. So Anders calls the watchman (Marvin) to tell him that there is a letter to mail so come up to the wheelhouse to get it. So then I said.."he's got to come all the way up here just for my letter? " Anders says yep! So, I fixed that.. I brought the letter down to the galley hoping I' ld see Marvin somewhere on my way, but I didn't so I left if on the counter and went back up to the wheelhouse. Then I told Anders I needed to use his walkie Talkie but I didn't know how....they thought that was funny..but even funnier when I called Marvin on the Walkie Talkie..ha ha So I told him where the letter was and that I didn't want him to have to come all the way up to get it...hmmm guess that was a mistake because I believe he's been getting some crap from the guys for that..ha ha oops!! Sorry Marvin!! Anyhow , he had to come all the way up later anyway since the Westcott brought some mail to the ship too. :o) Its along ways up there to the Wheelhouse !

48 steps worth from the galley deck ..believe me after going down to get my breakfast , lunch and dinner for 18 days!...I remember!! ha ha ha ( and I didn't think I was going to get any exercise..how silly of me!!

Once we got to the St. Clair River, around every bend in the river I was looking for the Blue Water Bridge as I knew that was the goal for me for the night! Couldn't actually see it until we got by Stag Island though but then somehow I got my 2nd wind and went out on the deck to get some photos but it was jut too dark out so no pictures but I was sure excited to see the bridge! Whoo hoo! It was 3:30 Am by that time . After we got to buoys 1 and 2 and Anders made the course alteration to go into Lake Huron then we went to bed! yea!!

Thursday August 31..We got up around 9:30 ( I just woke up, can't get used to sleeping in the day time! ) Anders did a bunch of his Captain guy stuff, lots of paperwork , and at the computer alot. He was at his desk til Lunchtime . We had lunch then took a nap since we' ld be in the St. Mary's River at 7:30Pm. Yep, another all nighter! Anders was now busy making travel arrangements for a crew change in Thunder bay. Some guys getting off, some guys getting on...more paperwork for the Captain guy!

We started into the river in the daytime but that didn't last for long, just long enough for me to take a photo of this ship at the Stone dock.

Then whaaa laaa the sun was going down already! We Gave Cathy a call in Detour to let her know to get her flag ready. Anders gave her a long Salute and we watched her waving her HUGE flag with the binoculars as it was much to far away to see her without them. She was waving like crazy! Good work out Cathy! Better than Curves! ha ha She gave us a call back to tell us that her husband Dave was fishing at light 13 in a yellow boat, so we looked for him and when we saw him , he got a salute too and we saw him stand up in his boat and wave at us. It was a fun time for us and probably them too..:o) Soon it was really dark again and I had a hard time figuring out which way we would be turning with all the flashing lights yet again. Although I could just go over and look a the computer to see the course which helped me anyway..:o) We saw the Algo Ontario and the Algo Marine , they thought it was pretty funny that when a ship was coming in the distance I couldn't see it. Geez with all those lights out there how the heck can you tell?? ha ha When we cleared the locks , there was a point that I'm looking at the horizon and I see a bunch of lights and I thought it was land and lights on houses. I went to the computer and I see its a ship and I made the mistake of saying out loud.."oh that's a ship, I thought it was an Island" Bad mistake ..I never heard the end of that...:o) We cleared the River around 2Am and went down to get some sleep. We had a great sleep across Lake Superior , got up around 10:30 to a beautiful sunny day. I Love the big lake and not being able to see land anywhere, its an awesome sight. Later on that afternoon we had a fire and boat drill. Anders blows the whistle a certain number of times and announces that there is a fire somewhere and the crew has to go take care of it. This photo is of the crew reporter to their muster stations , everyone must report in first to be sure that everyone is accounted for. The "pretend" fire was in the windlass room so that's where they were fighting the fire . When it was out then Anders blew the whistle again and everyone reported back to work. they do this drill once a month along with man over board drills and bomb drills etc. All so the crew will be prepared incase of a real emergency. They all for sure knew what they were doing too , pretty neat.

18 days yep there's another page!

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