Two vessels were closing on the Soo this morning inside a tight window, and the order of arrival was precise enough to write down.
Victory I was last reported at 4:19 a.m. Saturday running from 9 Mile Point toward the locks, carrying a 5:08 a.m. ETA. Federal Beaufort, a foreign-flag saltwater vessel, was behind her: last reported at 2:50 a.m. in the Detour passage with a 6:36 a.m. ETA. That is 88 minutes between them at the lock approach, the saltie trailing the laker into the queue in clean single file.
A foreign hull making the full upbound run through the connecting channels is not a daily event at the Soo. Federal Beaufort arrived at this morning's window with John G. Munson already turned through around 4:26 a.m., clearing the approach ahead of her.
The week's run of Soo convergences has been relentless. Saturday opened the same way Friday closed, and the saltie in the queue is the one detail Friday did not have.
Alpena was running a long downbound leg Saturday morning, last reported at Harbor Beach at 4:23 a.m., carrying a 9:01 a.m. ETA at Port Huron and a 1:29 p.m. ETA at the Detroit River. That is a full morning's transit on one AIS track.
Algoma Sault passed the Vantage Point at Port Huron downbound, last reported at 4:07 a.m., with a 9:28 a.m. ETA at the Detroit River. She and Alpena were running the same corridor hours apart, downbound and in the same direction.
Defiance and Presque Isle were both pushing upbound through Port Huron in the pre-dawn hours, Presque Isle carrying a 7:50 a.m. ETA and Defiance at 8:39 a.m., the pair holding close order on the same northbound stretch.
The Sam Laud, which this paper tracked Thursday, was last reported early Saturday heading upbound through the Detroit River, carrying a 6:27 a.m. ETA at the Dossin Museum passage.
NOAA puts Lake Superior at 1.68 feet above Low Water Datum at Sault Ste. Marie, Lake Michigan at 1.87 feet at Chicago, and Lake Huron at 1.92 feet at Harbor Beach. The eastern lakes carry more water: Erie at 2.96 feet at Cleveland, Ontario at 3.19 feet at Rochester. For a loaded saltie threading upbound from the Detour passage, Superior's modest read is the number that disciplines the draft discussion.
A cold front is crossing Lake Michigan this afternoon, with winds shifting westerly as it moves through. Lake Superior is tracking a trough this morning before ridging rebuilds from the northern Plains on Sunday and strengthens further. Lake Huron has a low lifting over northern Ontario dragging the front east. The Soo approach should stay workable through the morning hours before open-lake conditions tighten behind the front.
A life ring from the railroad car ferry S.S. Milwaukee turned up at a rummage sale in Manistee, nearly a century after the ship went down in Lake Michigan. The Milwaukee departed Milwaukee into a severe storm on October 22, 1929, bound for Grand Haven with a load of railroad cars, and never arrived. All 52 aboard were lost. The ring is now held by the Society for the Preservation of the S.S. City of Milwaukee, which operates the ship's successor as a museum at Manistee. Things wash out of attics on no schedule anyone can predict.