Now that E. Neil Harri is retired, he has more time to watch the big boats passing by Eagle Harbor. He spotted two recently and snapped these photos to share with us. The first two photos, the boat is the Marsgracht, which Neil says sails under the flag of the Netherlands. He also mentioned that a lot of grain is shipped all over the world from Duluth. But this trip they may have been transporting generator components to Duluth, so it will have cargo both ways.

The second two photos are of the Iryda, a Salty that hails from Cyprus and is a bulk carrier. I’m not sure what she was transporting, so if one of our resident “boatnerds” has the scoop, maybe they can chime in with that info. She passed by Eagle Harbor on Monday. It’s been tough going on Lake Superior lately, for the big boats, as we’ve had a number of Gale Warnings in the past couple weeks, so they have to take shelter in one of the safe bays around the Keweenaw during those events.

Neil has a video of a different form of transportation than the big boats. This is one of his flying friends taking off in the Harbor there. Pretty cool!

Fantastic photos and video!! Eagle Harbor always
looks great! Neil, do all your buddies just fly in
to see you? Also, you need a little bit better
view of the Big Lake don't you think? :=)) JK, I'm
jealous!! Thanks for the great shots and the plane
taking off was really cool!!

Make it a Great Day Pasty Folks!!

I agree, UC...nice pix and video! I occasionaly see a seaplane taking off from the Portage Canal on the MTU webcam, I wonder if Mr. Harri knows the pilot.

I live by the canal and the bridge, and there is
one of those sea planes that needs a new muffler,
if not another one.

From what I can find, it seems pretty common that the Iryda hauls steel from Europe to North America. Currently, it is loading wheat from Superior to return to Europe. The Marsgracht was indeed carrying wind turbine blades.

There is a great page called the Daily Great Lakes and Seaway Shipping News (run through Boatnerd) that reports on the movements of Great Lakes' ships, daily port reports, news relating to ships, this day in history, etc. The link to the site is below:

Daily Great Lakes and Seaway Shipping News

Great resource Capt. Paul.

I might be sensing a longer telephoto lens and tripod in E Neil Harri's future. Not much need for a either in a plane, lol.

I read last week (can't remember where) that several well known Lakers are already putting up for the season. The Roger Blough was one of them.

The Blough and the American Spirit are both MIA I
believe... I used to see them in the Soo almost
every time I was calling on the hospital there. It
was so often that I made a point to look for them.
lol

I found a source for the early Laker lay ups. It lists several other popular boats in Lake Superior. The article is from July so the list may have grown.

Also bumped into this story about a popularity competition this year last March that seemed intended to distract from the missing the NCAA March Madness.