Three vessels running downbound out of the Keweenaw corridor are set to reach the Soo Locks within twelve minutes of each other this Wednesday afternoon, and the order of their arrival makes the scene worth timing.
Algoma Innovator carries the earliest ETA: 14:55. Presque Isle is one minute behind at 14:56. Joseph L. Block closes the set at 15:07. All three were last reported in the Keweenaw-to-Soo stretch in the small hours of this morning, working their way down Lake Superior in a loose formation that the locks will have to sort out one chamber at a time.
Three downbound lakers queued that tightly at the Soo in a single afternoon is not routine. The locks process them in sequence; whoever threads the chamber first sets the wait for the two behind. Readers with a clear line to a scanner or a friend at the St. Marys can call the order as it develops. By early evening, whichever boat clears last should be in Lake Huron water and tracking toward the straits.
The Tregurtha we tracked through last week's Soo crossings is back in the picture too, this time upbound. Paul R. Tregurtha was placed at Detour, the Lake Huron approach to the St. Marys River, with a 05:18 Wednesday ETA at the locks. That puts her moving in the opposite direction from today's downbound trio, threading the St. Marys at almost the same hour the three were still crossing Superior.
Dirk S. VanEnkevort was upbound on the St. Clair River at Stag Island Upper as of 04:55 this morning, carrying a 05:42 ETA at the Vantage Point in Port Huron. Not the same boat as the Joyce L. VanEnkevort that led the September 11 edition; the names sound close enough to matter.
Algonova was upbound through the Detroit River corridor, placed near the Dossin Museum at 04:20 this morning with a 09:22 ETA at Port Huron, running the full river passage in Wednesday's early hours.
Federal Mosel was upbound from South East Shoal toward Detroit as of 04:01 this morning, ETA at the Dossin Museum waypoint 08:41, one more salty working the lower lakes passage.
USEPA Lake Guardian was inbound toward Duluth/Superior from Bark Point as of 03:45 this morning with a 07:08 ETA, running Lake Superior while the water there sits at 1.63 feet above Low Water Datum.
Lake Superior at 1.63 feet above Low Water Datum gives the downbound trio on today's Soo run reasonable draft room, though Superior is the shallowest relative reading among the five lakes right now. Lake Michigan and Huron are both at 2.02 feet. Erie is the fullest freshwater corridor at 2.75 feet, with Ontario at 2.90. For a laker clearing the Soo and heading toward Huron, the step up in level is slight but real.
Superior is the calm lake today, waves at 1 foot as high pressure builds toward 30.4 inches before weakening over Quebec by Thursday morning. Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario are all running 2-foot seas, with a cold front stalled near the southern lakes and veering northeast winds expected on Michigan by mid-morning. Nothing in today's forecast resembles Tuesday's gale that grounded the Badger; the corridors are open.
A life ring from the railroad car ferry S.S. Milwaukee has turned up at a rummage sale in Manistee, nearly a century after the ship went down on October 22, 1929, taking 52 people with it. The Milwaukee was carrying railroad cars between Milwaukee and Grand Haven when it sailed into a Lake Michigan storm and did not come back. No survivors. The life ring is now in the hands of the Society for the Preservation of the S.S. City of Milwaukee, which maintains the ship's successor as a museum vessel in Manistee. Objects like that have a way of outlasting everything else.