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| Duluth again....... I'm in a rut. Getting predictable and boring. But winter is near and travel to Duluth will soon mean long hours on snowy roads just to see more snow and ice, albeit in different surroundings. Wintertime keeps us close to home, so I feel compelled to take advantage of yet another in a series of beautiful fall Saturdays. Unbelievably, it turns out to be sunny and in the 50's, almost shirtsleeve conditions. It's 11 AM We've traveled non-stop to the Garfield Ave. observation area, in the shadow of the Blatnik Bridge, where the kids pick up an interesting piece of driftwood-board. We decide to write a poem on it and place it in our rock garden. (There is a house, near the lift bridge, on Minnesota Point, that has many driftwood boards inscribed with poems and sayings in their front yard, right next to the sidewalk where everyone can read and enjoy them.) I can identify 6 ships from this spot. Left to right they are
There is a ship moving our way from the south and we go out to the end of the fishing dock to see the Reiss Marine come in. At first I thought it was a tugboat but as it gets closer it seems to be some kind of research or salvage vessel. While we are waiting for the Reiss Marine to come, I notice, to the right, the Indiana Harbor's bow thrusters churning the water as the ship gets underway. The Reiss Marine passes our position (eventually docking on Connors point) and cuts to the left, quite close ahead of the rapidly approaching Indiana Harbor. In a few minutes the I.H. passes and her extremely friendly crew waves enthusiastically to us. It's 12 noon. We head for Canal Park and arrive in plenty of time to see the I.H. again; only now we are lost in a crowd of hundreds of other shipwatchers. The storm gates are shut for the winter, so no one can walk out to the lighthouses on either side of the canal. Two days ago, on Thursday there was a storm with 8 ft. waves that were breaking onto the pier, making it dangerous. It's 12:30. The I.H. has just left and passes the Columbia Star on it's way in. Seems as if this will be a high traffic day! These two ships are identical except for the paint job. The I.H. is white with a black hull and the C.S. is off-white with a brown hull. It is easy to compare the two as they pass each other, as I examine and check out their features with binoculars. It's 1 pm. The crowds are too much, so we follow the Columbia Star over to Garfield Ave. where we watch it turn around and back in to the Midwest Energy Terminal, to the space just vacated by the Indiana Harbor. On an earlier trip, we had observed the St. Clair do this same maneuver, so it must not be that unusual. We get a REAL CLOSE look at the bowthrusters in action as the ship passes our position and the bow swings a little too close to the pier we are standing on. The bowthrusters seem to be churning the water at full force, as the ship, directly in front of us and about thirty feet away, pushes itself away. Handy things to have! Our attention has been divided between the Columbia Star and a garter snake that seems to be in a predicament. It has come to the end of a ledge not much wider than it's body, about three feet above the water. The ledge is on an ancient, rock-filled, timbered pier that is only a few feet away from our platform. The pier is completely surrounded by water, the nearest dry land several hundred feet away. The snake cannot go forward (no ledge left) and cannot turn around without falling off into the harbor. It has been searching upward for some nook or cranny to crawl into, extending the upper half of it's body as far as it can without slipping off. It's now 1:30 As we are leaving, a lady asks how to get to Goodwill Industries, so, as we are going that way anyway, we lead her there. My wife and kids decide to check it out, so I drop them off and go exploring on my own for a few minutes. I discover the tugboat Essayons at a slip in the Bayfront area. (I later discover there is a campaign to develop this area and add my two cents worth. My opinion made the front page of the Duluth-News Tribune Online .) It's 2:00 We are back to Canal Park just in time to see the H.M.Griffith arrive. Good timing so far! We hang around here for a while enjoying the beautiful weather. It's 3:00 We walk over to the Computer Pro booth where they have a live cam that I had accessed the day before, at home. The "youngsters" at Computer Pro want to sign me up for Internet access and seem flustered when I tell them I'm already on the web. I give them my card with my URL telling them to check it out. I don't think they ever met anyone my age that had their own web page! Never do hear from anyone. 4:00 and all's well. We are in the van, crossing over the lift bridge to hike on Park Point when I see the Tarantua is leaving. By the time we find a place to park, the bridge is lifting and by the time we walk to the canal the Tarantua is there. What great timing we have today! Always in the right place at the right time! We next drive to the end of the road on Park Point and go for our walk on the beach. Spending time on the beach is very important to my total enjoyment quotient. There was lots of interesting driftwood thrown high on the beach by the 8 ft. waves of Thursdays storm. It's 5 pm and we missed a ship. After walking the beach, we head back to Canal Park, about four miles away. Looking down the length of the harbor, I see a ship moving. It's already aligned to go under the lift bridge. No way we can get there in time. Never do find out it's name. 5:20 Canadian Trader leaves. I don't want to go home, It's such a beautiful day! The William Irvin has been decorated as a "Haunted Ship" and will be open for business in a little while. The kids were hoping we'd see it this year and, even tho it means getting home long after dark, it's been such a great day I'd do most anything to hang around the lake a little longer. 5:40 Off to the haunted ship Irvin, rechristened "The Ship of Ghouls" for the occasion. It's not going to open for another 30 minutes but there is already a LONG line. I try to compute how long this is going to take. There's at least 200 people ahead of us. 6:15 Still standing in line. See the top of an unknown ship leaving. Rats, missed another! It's getting dark. They're letting people board ship in groups of 15, about 4 minutes apart. We don't enter until 6:45 and are out 15 minutes later. The kids rush thru the ghoulishness a little too fast. There is a minimum of props and decoration. The theatrically trained "crew" concentrates on their acting to provide the entertainment. I try to interact with the ghouls, but most of them seem frightened of me. Should have kept my fangs hidden I guess. 7:05 We should be on our way home, but hunger and the smell of Whoppers delays our departure. The handy Canal Park Burger King has provided us with many a good, quick meal. It's now very dark and as I stand outside the BK, I compare the lights of Duluth with the intense blackness of Lake Superior, noting the sharp outline of the shore, aware of the presence of the waters surface. Not visible, the water is as black as the sky, except for....LIGHTS! ON THE WATER! A SHIP! Was it going or coming? Did we miss another ship leaving while we took our ghoulish tour? It was hard to sense movement. It was still a long ways out. Hmm, there are red and green lights on it. Green on the left, red on the right. If I could remember what color was on which side of a ship, I could figure out which way this thing was pointed! I couldn't remember, but looking at the lighthouse I deduced that if the green light was on the right side of the ship canal, it would also be on the right side of a ship. If green was on the right side of a ship, then this ship would be coming in! Gotta see this! We sit down and eat while we wait. 7:20 Sea Pearl II arrives! What a perfect ending to a perfect day! I knew I had decided correctly when the lift bridge went all the way to the top, not halfway up as it does for smaller boats. Time dragged on, but suddenly, the outline of a ship appeared out of the jumble of lights, as the reflected illumination from the land overcame the ships own. The ship museum had closed and only a handful of people watched, silent in their enjoyment. In fact, the faint rumbling of the ship was able to drown out the sparse, distant car noise and no gulls were about to disturb the peace. It was almost an apparition. I had never observed at night and I will never forget the Sea Pearl II glowing, floating on the black invisible surface. Gliding past. Under the liftbridge. Images of its passage are etched in my mind. The visual memories augmented by perceptions of mass, power and vitality that radiated outward hundreds of feet from the ships core, traveling thru air, water, and concrete. |
