Not every story on the lakes is a single port call. Tuesday's report from Marblehead, Ohio, logged the Manitoulin making two separate touches at the Amrize dock for limestone loads, with a trip to Kingsville, Ontario, sandwiched between them.
The sequence as reported: Manitoulin loaded at Amrize, departed for Kingsville, unloaded at Southwestern Sales, left Kingsville, returned to Marblehead, and went back to the Amrize dock for a second load. That is a full day's geometry in a single port report, the kind of short-haul shuttle work that keeps the limestone moving without a headline to its name.
Also at Amrize on Tuesday, the Dorothy Ann/Pathfinder arrived for a load of limestone and departed for Cleveland once loaded. Three limestone moves out of one Marblehead dock in a day's reporting is not common. A strong cold front was pushing east across Lake Erie as this traffic moved, with waves forecast at 2 feet on Erie and a trough near 29.90 inches lingering through Wednesday.
Joyce L. VanEnkevort/Great Lakes Trader arrived at Monroe with coal for DTE on Tuesday, a different call from the load she took at Norfolk Southern in Sandusky the day before; the two reports are separate facts and that is how they stand.
In Toledo on Tuesday, the tanker Stenheim departed for Hamilton and Evans Spirit arrived at Midwest Terminals. Stenheim had arrived Monday to load at George Gradel, so her Hamilton departure closes that call.
The SS Badger canceled its Monday evening crossings from Ludington and the return from Manitowoc due to hazardous conditions on Lake Michigan, where a cold front dragged gusty southwest winds across the water early Tuesday morning. Lake Michigan Carferry cited passenger safety.
The former USCGC Sundew left Duluth Monday afternoon, bound for the U.S. Coast Guard Festival in Grand Haven, running July 24 through August 2. Her Duluth-based active counterpart, USCGC Spar, will not attend this year.
Lake Erie sits at 3.02 feet above Low Water Datum at Cleveland, the highest reading across the upper four lakes right now. Lake Huron is the shallow end of the current range at 1.62 feet above datum, a number that matters to any vessel drafting deep out of Harbor Beach. Superior and Michigan are nearly matched at 2.20 and 2.21 feet respectively, offering consistent load margins at Duluth and Chicago-area docks.
The strong cold front crossing Lake Erie today is the headline weather fact for any watcher on the southern shore. A trough near 29.90 inches is forecast to linger over the Lower Great Lakes through Wednesday before high pressure at 30.20 inches expands east. On Lake Superior, a gale warning was in effect from 8 a.m. through this evening as a 29.2-inch low moved into northern Quebec. Lake Huron faces a second cold front sweeping through Tuesday evening with a brief period of stronger conditions possible.
The history file today carries the name of Captain Steve Hughes, a Marquette native who spent thirty years working up to the pilot's chair of the Paul R. Tregurtha, the longest vessel operating on the Great Lakes. Hughes, who grew up watching ore boats dock at Marquette with his father John, a former NMU geography professor, is set to retire in December. The Tregurtha we tracked in this space on July 15 dropping ore at Cleveland is the same boat Hughes has called his for three decades.