Ice Buildup on Great Lakes Causing Shipping Delays

We have been dealing with a very long stretch of extremely cold temperatures for the past four weeks, as have many in the northern US and eastern Canada. Currently, we are suffering through what is being described as a 'Polar Vortex'. As I write this, the current windchill temperature is -30 Celsius.

 I just call it all more reason to spend next winter in Florida!

 This far reaching and long term weather is resulting in excessive ice along the Great Lakes shipping routes, with some areas not seeing conditions this bad since the 1930's. At the Soo Locks in Sault St. Marie, there are four US Coast Guard Ice Breakers working around the clock to keep the shipping lanes open, according to an article on the Up North Live web site.

A bit farther south, CBC News has reported a number of ships stranded on the Detroit River at Windsor. The Canadian Coast Guard dispatched one of their breakers to get the traffic moving again. The story quotes US Coast Guard Petty Officer Ross Flowers as saying "It's potentially something that's only going to get worse in the next couple of days," He also adds that ice that forms a little further up on the St. Clair River is harder to break up, referring to it as a giant frozen snowbank.

 We purchased our current #boat on Lake St. Clair in 2010, where it was berthed at MacRay Harbor marina. The seller recounted that a few years prior, winter ice upstream on the river clogged the water flow so much that the level of Lake St. Clair briefly dropped significantly. Some of the boats stored there are housed in funky, covered and heated wet slips and when the water went down, so did these boats. Some of the big ones were actually sitting on bottom before the water levels returned.

 Here's a shot of our newly adopted 'Boogaboo IV' in one of those covered slips. They offer in-water storage, complete with overhead, natural gas fired radiant heating. Some folks actually live on their boats there for the winter. Cost? About $10 G's (USD).

MacRay Harbor Marina slips, Lake St. Clair, Michigan.

 So let's bundle up folks. Good news is that we're more than half way through the off season!

:-)

Falling Through The Ice!

I call this photo 'Man's Boots Drying In The Sun';

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Well, today was another good day at the Cottage to get some work done around the joint. Yes, it all started off well enough, with everyone showing up to work on the boats and even help out with Sanja's roof extension. I must say that with the Pefferlaw River opening up rather quickly, some of us thought that maybe the ice might not be safe enough to work on. At some point, I might have thought the same thing and may have looked a little apprehensive; But, as the work moved on - and the river got closer - everything proceeded swimmingly (no pun intended) and the roof work moved ahead; After many, many hours and hours and hours of hard labour, it was time for a bit of a break. With all the open water right next to where we were working, Wevvy thought it would be a good idea for us to do a little fishing, so he brought down his fishing rods; After all, it was such a nice day, what could possibly go wrong? Nothing. . . . Nothing, that is unless you throw in one silly contractor with a very powerful tool. And a poor judge of ice conditions. . . . To help you out with what you are about to see, the tool that you see your Commodore show up with is called a Paslode cordless nailer. It's designed for house framing and firmly plants a 3" nail into lumber. It is very powerful. It can hurt. It was not designed to nail the ice to the bottom. . . . . I'm pretty sure on that last one. It's a good thing that we had an Innocent Bystander to capture what came next and should have not come as any surprise at all. Before you see this, I must tell you that when I watched this the first 2 or 3 times, I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard!!! I was in total hysterics with this one & can't stop laughing every time I see it it:-) Have Fun!