One of the goals in freighter spotting is to spot what the boat nerds call “a footer”, which is freighter that is 1000 feet or more. There are only 13 footers that traverse the Great Lakes. One such vessel, the Mesabi Miner, passed by around 1:30 am while we were sleeping.
We arose around 6:30 am, just in time to be rewarded with the Edwin H Gott, a footer, that we saw passing by from our balcony! It is the most powerful of the footers on the Great Lakes, boasting 19,500 horsepower!!
After brewing a cup of coffee and wrapping up in the soft hotel robe, we ventured back out on the balcony and were greeted with a gorgeous sunrise! Michael searched for more northbound freighters with his scope, and it wasn’t long before we were rewarded again, this time with the H. Lee White, which you can see behind me
After lounging in our hotel room for most of the morning, we took Poppy for another walk. Yesterday we hadn’t walked the full “Nautical Mile” that goes through downtown Marine City, and we encountered two more parks.
The Mariner’s Park had a really nice picnic pavilion and bath house and next to this park was the Marine City Beach; I can imagine how packed these two spaces must be during the summer months.
After our two-mile walk, we decided to take a drive to Port Huron to have lunch at Palms Krystal Bar & Grill. We ate here last year and hubby really enjoyed it.
After lunch we drove down and parked near the Blue Water Bridge to access the Blue Water River Walk.
During the walk we came upon a USCG Cutter, Sequoia. A vessel is designated a cutter if it is 65 feet or longer, containing built-in accommodations for a permanent crew to live aboard. The USCGC Sequoia is a seagoing buoy tender, and its primary mission is the maintaining of 150 navigation aids across the lower Great Lakes. It also participates in domestic icebreaking, search and rescue, marine environmental protection and law enforcement activities when required.
There were multiple flags flying from its mast which we could identify; the flag of the USCG, the State of Michigan flag, and a POW/MIA flag. There was another flag, a triangular nautical signal flag also which we did not know what if signified. It had a white background with a horizontal black stripe.
After a little research it was determined to be the Third Substitute pennant (or Third Repeater). It’s use within the military, is as an “absence indicator”; when the vessel is in port it will be flown to indicate that the captain has temporarily left the ship and is lowered upon their return.
This flag’s primary international maritime purpose is, while receiving a coded message, requesting the third letter/number to be repeated…hence the name Third Substitute or Third Repeater flag. I found this so interesting!
Back in Marine City, we ended our day with three special sightings. First, we saw two ships pass each other…. a first for us and was really impressive to see! The northbound vessel was the Niagara and the southbound vessel was the tugboat Victory that was pushing the barge Maumee.
To our great delight…the last ship we would view today was another footer! The American Integrity! We decided to view this one at Lighthouse Park rather than from our hotel balcony. As we were walking to the park, we came across this gentle reminder…His presence all around us!
Here she comes!
Perfect way to end the day!
