Today we are heading 22.8 miles across Green Bay to Menominee, MI. We tossed the lines and headed out slowly since we have to wait for the top of the hour at 8:00 am for a bridge opening.
When we arrived at the City of Sturgeon Bay after exiting the canal we went under the main bridge that bypasses the city, which is useful for traffic heading up further into Door County to the north. Of course, this bridge happened to be closed entirely, but it was high enough for us to get under. The remaining two bridges are about two blocks apart and are right downtown so they have extra traffic with the one bridge closure. We passed under the first of these bridges with plenty of room. This brings us to this (photo above left), the third bridge, which only opens on the hour and half hour, and we are sitting there patiently (?) for about 5 minutes.
After passing through the third and final bridge, we will pass the Bay Shipbuilding Co., and I would like to get a good view of the 4 lake freighters that are there for service. The photo at the right is a close up view of the stern of the Roger Blough. Two weeks ago she was grounded on rocks in Lake Superior, and it took about 5 days to get two empty lake freighters to come and take on enough of the Blough's cargo of iron ore so that she floated free.
She needs to have a bottom inspection and if necessary some repairs, but she will have to wait for at least 2 weeks for the big dry dock to become available. The photo at the right is of the forward half of the Blough. She was built in my old hometown of Lorain, Ohio. After the launch in 1971, she had a massive fire in the engine room and was delayed entering into service.
The photo at the right is of the Lee A Tregurtha also at Bay Shipbuilding to have scrubbers added to her smoke stack to reduce emissions. She is a very classic design and the favorite ship of many fans of lake freighters. In about a week we will be leaving the Green Bay area crossing over to the east side of Lake Michigan and then head up to the Straits of Mackinac, where we will begin to see more of these massive ships under way on the lakes. You can see that the bottom paint is well above water level as is part of her propeller, which means that her ballast tanks are empty.
Across Sturgeon Bay from the shipyard, there were 5 of these tugs moored at their dock (photo at left). It took two of these tugs to help position the Blough at her dock at the shipyard. Another one of these tugs had escorted the Blough here from Lake Superior after she was freed from the bottom. The shipyard is very active, and over the winter lay up, there will be as many as 12 lake freighters in for repair, repowering, 5 year inspections, etc.
Just when you think that you have seen it all.... Here is the tug "Spuds" sitting up on a dock. It does look like it needs new tires, but I guess that she has been retired at least for the moment. Lots of interest in private ownership of tugs so hopefully she will be put to good use. They have rendezvous, races, etc. for tugs on the great lakes and other areas like the Erie Canal.
Our last view of Sturgeon Bay (both the city and the bay) was through the haze as we motored out onto a fairly smooth Green Bay (photo at left). The wind was only 6 to 8 mph out of the SSW, but there were some 1-2 foot rollers coming from the same direction. In spite of this we had a lovely cruise of less than 20 miles to Menominee, Michigan. The center of the photo looks "low" because there we are looking into the bay.
After about 5 miles, the west side of Green Bay became visible through the haze. As we approached the city of Menominee, we bypassed the main harbor and ship channel to go to our marina, which is about a half mile further north. The marina is adjacent to the old downtown, which means that there were about a dozen restaurants within jus a few blocks. Like many other cities, the marina and waterfront parks were built on fill into the water (Green Bay in this case).
Here is the north end of the marina with Lucky Us being further along moored to the shore bulk head right in front of the Dockmaster's Office. Guess that we will have to curtail the wild and crazy parties... We did not see many tricked out fishing boats with multiple down riggers and 20 or 30 rod holders like we saw on the west side of Lake Michigan. Perhaps that is because at least Green Bay where we crossed it is fairly shallow, i.e. less than 100 feet deep. The fishermen that we passed on Lake Michigan were all fishing in water 120 to 150 feet deep. The fish probably have already moved out of here to deeper colder waters and won't be back until the water gets cold again. This would make it hard for commercial guides to make money here.
We arrived in time to check in and walk almost across the street to the Serving Spoon for lunch. I threw my diet to the wind and had a side salad and a wonderful flat bread pizza with dried tomatoes, chicken and just a dusting of parmesan cheese. Somewhere in here Lucky and I took a long walk and I had a nap... Then it was time to explore more of the waterfront.
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