The USEPA research vessel Lake Guardian arrived at Cleveland's Dock 26E today, a working call for the agency's primary Great Lakes monitoring platform. She moves across all five lakes through the navigation season, pulling the long-term water column record that no freighter schedule accommodates. A berth at the Port of Cleveland puts her in the middle of the busiest Erie traffic of the week.
She arrived the same morning Viking Octantis took Dock 28W, making the Port's dock line an unusual mix of research and expedition tonnage. Neither vessel is there for cargo. Both are there for something a port report rarely has to account for.
Toledo was busy on its own terms today, documented below, but the Lake Guardian call has no precedent in this week's editions and the dock is checkable by anyone with a view of the Cuyahoga mouth.
Dirk S. VanEnkevort and tug partner Michigan Trader departed Toledo for Calcite today. Calcite is the Rogers City limestone operation on Lake Huron's Michigan shore, so the pair is heading north through the straits rather than east on Erie.
Baie Comeau arrived at Toledo to load coal at CSX today; the same date's report also shows her departing with no updated destination logged. The data records both movements on July 17. Whether the load was completed between arrival and departure, the report does not confirm, and this desk will not say it was.
Albert/Margaret arrived at George Gradel in Toledo to load. Victory/Maumee, the boat we tracked arriving at Monroe with coal for DTE on Thursday, turned around and left for Cedarville today. Short turnaround, straight run north.
Algoma Buffalo arrived at Cleveland's Cargill berth for salt. The Cleveland arrival list carries one additional vessel name that the source data truncates; this desk drops truncated names rather than guess at them.
Lake Ontario leads the system at 3.83 feet above Low Water Datum at Rochester. Lake Erie follows at 3.16 feet at Cleveland. Huron reads 2.36 feet at Harbor Beach, Lake Michigan 2.19 feet at Chicago, and Superior 1.88 feet at the Soo. A vessel bound from Toledo to Lake Superior traverses a system dropping nearly 1.3 feet from Erie to Superior; the shallowest point on that route sets the load limit, not the destination end.
A Marine Dense Smoke Advisory covers all open waters of Lake Michigan through Friday, with visibility falling to 1 nautical mile or less as wildfire smoke from Minnesota and northwestern Ontario drifts across the lake. Lake Huron expects showers and thunderstorms late today and overnight as a weak low arrives. A warm front lifts across Erie tonight into Saturday, cold front following from the northwest Saturday night. Superior stays quiet under high pressure, seas at one foot. Erie and Huron are both running two-foot seas today.
Capt. Steve Hughes of Duluth will retire in December after three decades on the lakes, finishing at the helm of the Paul R. Tregurtha, the longest vessel operating on fresh water. He grew up in Marquette watching ore boats load at the docks, his father a geography professor who knew the waterfront well. He became, in time, the thing he used to watch. 'The distinction is more symbolic than operational,' he said of the record. He did not seem troubled by saying so.