The Soo Locks had a traffic problem before most of the Sault was awake Friday morning.
American Integrity, downbound, was off Point Iroquois at 4:32 a.m. with a 5:53 a.m. ETA at the locks. At almost the same moment, the upbound Victory I was logged off 9 Mile Point at 4:25 a.m. with a 5:18 a.m. ETA. Downbound and upbound, thirty-five minutes between them at the same gate complex, both still closing.
Neither would be alone for long. Juno, also upbound, was tracking in from Detour with a 6:50 a.m. ETA, last reported at 1:50 a.m. St. Marys Pilot was making the same approach from Detour, due at 5:12 a.m. Further back on the downbound Keweenaw corridor, Algoma Sault was last logged at 1:08 a.m. with a midday ETA of 12:51 p.m., and CG Katmai Bay was behind her, last reported at 3:05 a.m. with an ETA of 1:57 p.m.
The MacArthur and Poe locks will sort out who goes when. The queue itself is the story: five named vessels working the approaches in both directions, in the dark, on the first Friday of September.
Federal Baltic, downbound, was at Algonac in the Detroit River at 4:58 a.m. Friday with an 8:04 a.m. ETA at Detroit. Moving the opposite direction on the same water, BBC Leer was upbound from Southeast Shoal at 4:16 a.m. with an 8:00 a.m. ETA at Detroit, four minutes separating two salties pointed at each other through the same corridor.
G3 Marquis was upbound at the Detroit River Light at 4:41 a.m., due at Port Huron by 11:30 a.m. Vlieborg, also upbound, was logged at the Dossin Museum position at 4:25 a.m. with a 10:35 a.m. ETA at Port Huron, arriving ahead of the Marquis despite the later start from further downriver.
Burns Harbor cleared the Superior Entry outbound at 3:37 a.m. Friday, first vessel logged out of Duluth/Superior on today's board.
Lake Ontario leads the system at 3.39 feet above Low Water Datum, measured at Rochester. Lake Erie reads 3.37 feet at Cleveland. Lake Michigan stands at 2.19 feet at Chicago, Lake Huron at 1.83 feet at Harbor Beach, and Lake Superior at 1.64 feet at Sault Ste. Marie. Vessels locking down through the Soo step into progressively deeper water all the way to Ontario, a spread of 1.75 feet lake to lake, useful headroom for fall grain loads still to come.
A stalled frontal boundary is draped across the southern and western lakes today. Lake Michigan carries light and variable winds with showers and thunderstorms possible this morning, some capable of damaging winds; seas are running 1 foot. Lake Huron gets additional storm rounds until the front dislodges southward tonight, 2-foot seas. Lake Superior is calm under a high-pressure ridge building toward 30.1 inches through the weekend, 2-foot seas. Lake Erie sees the front sag south tonight, 1-foot seas. Lake Ontario is clearing behind a secondary cold front, 2-foot seas.
One hundred years ago this November, the steamer City of Bangor went ashore on a reef near Copper Harbor during a Lake Superior storm, carrying a load of new automobiles out of Detroit. What followed was stranger than the wreck: crews pulled cars off a grounded freighter in midwinter Superior conditions, an operation unusual enough to earn its own painting by Upper Peninsula artist Clyde Mikkola. The Keweenaw Historical Society recently accepted the framed work, marking a shipwreck that has not lost its hold on the Copper Country.