Last Canal Day of the Season

December 30th was the last day for transit through the Welland Canal this year. Over the years, the Seaway has extended the closing date from Christmas Eve to the end of December to allow vessels the chance to make an additional voyage before the locks shut down for maintenance over the winter. We go up through the canal from Port Weller to Port Colborne on the last day to remove navigation lanterns from the buoys and to position the vessel for icebreaking service on Lake Erie and Lake Huron.



Raising in Lock 1



Lock 1 offered a chance to see an unusual use for a bicycle as one of the lock personnel cycled around the lock area retrieving lifebuoys for winter storage. Maybe it will catch on at the Old Port and Lachine Canal!

Every minute of down time is used by the Seaway as they put equipment in place in advance of the shut down so that work can begin the next day. There is no room for delays as the system must reopen again at the end of March.



We did our part by helping to move some new rubber fendering from the approach wall at Lock 4 onto the 'Bull Nose' between the flight locks prior to entering the lock. The Seaway has been replacing some of the traditional wood fendering with the more resilient rubber version over the last few winters.

Lock 4 West is the first of the 'flights' for upbound vessels. Not sure what the gushing fountain is caused by though it is a bit disconcerting as you enter the lock.

Between Lock 7 and Lock 8 is a long run with only one bridge to pass under, but it is a famous one. Many people have seen the dramatic footage of the bridge lowering down on the Windoc and ripping the top of its wheelhouse off. I don't think any mariner passing under this bridge does not ponder this incident no matter how many years ago.

We finished our last buoywork of the season by Lock 8 and secured in Port Colborne for the night. Lake Erie has southwest gales forecast for New Year's Day so 2012 will come in like a lion and winter will be delayed a bit longer on the Lakes.

Bonne Annee

Christmas on the St. Lawrence Seaway

A deck load of navigation buoys doubles as a Christmas display.

Christmas is just another day on the Seaway as ships make their final trips of the season before the system shuts down at the end of December. Even though the weather has been mild; the Seaway will still close for the winter in order to do essential maintenance to locks, approach walls, bridges.

Merry Christmas

Busy day in Cornwall

The port of Cornwall, Ontario saw an unusual amount of activity today on a wet, first day of winter.

What the above screen shot from our electronic chart with AIS overlay does not show are the barges at each dock in addition to the three tugs and our ship in the middle. One barge was being used for recent work on the international bridge and the other barge had docked in the early hours of the morning to load a shipment of large tanks bound for Newfoundland and Labrador.

A very capable looking ocean going tug is standing by to push the barge down through the Seaway and then tow it across the Gulf.

But even the hard working tug crew spending the holidays towing a barge has a bit of the Christmas spirit.

Smoke on the water

Some cold weather finally descended on the St. Lawrence over the weekend. With the temperature dipping to -12C and the water temperature still a relatively warm 6C, the water vapour evaporating off the river froze in the air to form 'Sea Smoke'.

The sun made quick work of the sea smoke and within an hour it was starting to dissipate. It will take a few more days of cold weather around the Valleyfield area to bring the water temperature down to freezing so we can replace the summer light buoys with winter spars and clear them off our decks.

Then it will be off to the Welland Canal before it closes and the start of another icebreaking season on the Great Lakes.

Season Greetings

We are somewhat limited in what can be displayed for Christmas lights due to the necessity to be able to distinguish our navigation lights, but it adds a festive note for those of us who have to work over the holidays.

The 50 R's

Took in the Recycling Artists Fair at the Biosphere on the weekend:

http://www.ec.gc.ca/biosphere/default.asp?lang=En&n=9A5EB643-1

Quite a few people had taken old bicycle tire inner tubes and used them to create handbags, shoulder bags, etc.

I've seen some magazine articles about people using old inner tubes for items for the cyclist, but there was nothing really along that line at the show.

Still, it expands the idea of what is possible with materials instead of just tossing them in the recycling bin.

Reseau Blanc Montreal

How to know there is a year round section of bike paths in Montreal? Well, you really need to know about it before even looking for it on the city's website:

http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/TRANSPORT_FR/MEDIA/DOCUMENTS/R%C9SEAU%20BLANC%202010.PDF

In fact, you would be hard pressed to notice that Montreal is one of the top cycling cities in North America since there is no mention at all of cycling on the city's 'Transportation and Public Works' page except for a link at the bottom to the Bixi site. Though you will get directed to a link for the city map of bike paths under 'Summer Activities' on the 'Sports and Recreation' page. So much for promoting cycling as an environmentally friendly form of transportation.

However, what I am really wondering is how city decided what routes would be part of the Reseau Blanc? Looking at the map on the above link, I cannot understand why the city did not include all of the Rachel path in order to connect Parc Jeanne Mance to Parc Maissoneuve as well as keeping rue Clark open all the way to the rail path at Van Horne?

Clark at Bernard

Rue Clark is certainly wide enough to have the bike path open all year even with snow clearing. Plus, it is much the safer route, path or no path, than dealing with the traffic on St. Laurent or St. Urbain. Even with the path closed, cyclists still use Clark in both directions. Same applies for the continuation of the North/South path on Boyer.

Boyer at Rosemont

The snow earlier this week had me all set to put the bike away for the next four months, but I have since reconsidered. The only way to demonstrate the utility of keeping more bike paths open year round is to keep our bikes on the road year round. They could even be designated multi-use paths in the winter; for bikes, sleds, skis or snowshoes. A real Reseau Blanc!

Question of this day

How many tickets did the City of Montreal hand out today to automobilists who parked in the bike paths that are still supposed to be open this last official day of the cycling season?

I would hazard to guess none.

I can imagine the glee on the faces of these drivers as they reclaim their rightful territory on the streets for another winter.

Questions of the Day

Why exactly do the bike paths in Montreal close on November 15th?

The city has to remove those green posts most of which they no longer install anyways?

To facilitate snow removal? Why not leave the snow where it lands on the paths so that they can be used for winter cycling or cross-country skiing or snowshoeing?

As a start, why not extend the bike path season to December 15th to coincide with the date that motorists have to install their winter tires?

Travelling to old haunts another way

Our operations in the Great Lakes normally end at the locks at Beauharnois, the boundary between two Coast Guard regions. However, a call to assist Laurentian Region brought us east of the boundary; familiar territory for my biking but less so when navigating the ship. After a quick steam across a calm Lac St. Louis, we enter the South Shore Canal at Kahnawake.

The dyke along the canal is a popular cycling route, but no cyclists were to be seen between Cote Ste Catherine Lock and St. Lambert Lock on this crisp, late October day. A large ship can take 20 to 30 minutes to enter a lock, but we can zip in and under the bridge in about 5 minutes.

Passing clear of the east end of the island of Montreal, the brilliant silver spires of the Basilica at Varennes stand out along the south shore. This is a great day trip cycling destination from Montreal, which can be combined with a trip across the river via the Parc des Iles de Boucherville by the ferry at Bellerive Park and then another ferry from Ile Grosbois to the South shore at Boucherville (http://www.navark.ca/2_navette.htm). Note, there is a limit to the maximum number of persons the ferries can take at a time so you should factor this into your timing on busy weekends. You will also want to get to Varennes before 4pm so you can visit the Basilica and the Shrine of Sainte Marguerite d'Youville before they close (http://en.sanctuaireyouville.ca/the_shrine). Oh, and pack a lunch because there are not many choices for food at Varennes although the waterfront park just down from the Basilica is a nice place for a picnic and there are washroom facilities in the information centre.

Crossing Lac St. Pierre just east of Sorel, we passed some commercial vessels going upbound before we headed towards the elegant Pont Laviolette with Trois Rivieres lying just on the other side.

Our work assignment over the next week and a half involved removing summer light buoys from the navigation channel between Grondines and Sorel; replacing some of them with winter buoys that can within the ice that forms starting in December. Some of the buoys can be stood up on the deck, but the base of some buoys require them to be layed on their side. It makes for a cluttered working area by the end of the day.

We berthed at Trois Rivieres at the end of most work days in order to transit back to Sorel where the CG base is located for unloading of the summer buoys and loading the next batch of winter buoys.

Vieux Trois Rivieres is a very picturesque location to berth for the night, and a popular one for Coast Guard ships.

Just downstream is another Basilica: Notre Dame du Cap (http://www.sanctuaire-ndc.ca/sndc01/index.php?Itemid=152), with its dramatic dual-coloured dome.

Our trip ended in Sorel with a change of crew. It is a small town, but a very busy port for its size.

Next month will see us back in our own region, working over Christmas and New Years to close out the Seaway season and heading west to Lake Erie and another winter of icebreaking on the Lakes.

Season winding down

Late October and it is time to start removing the small craft buoys throughout the Great Lakes. This week, it was Lake St. Clair's turn. As the lake it quite shallow, except for the main shipping channel running through it, the work had to be done by our work barge while we waited in the channel for its return.

It took a full day to lift the many buoys and anchors from the Thames River and Mitchell's Bay, and then transit back to the ship. The barge made it back to the ship just as the sun was setting. The reflective tape that is used to help boaters identify the buoys at night shows up extremely well in the camera's flash.

As we finished up unloading the barge and putting the barge on deck, we waited our turn for a ship to pass heading down the lake and followed him towards our dock in Windsor.

First Law Of Cycling

As I am standing at a corner in Mile End waiting for the light to change, I can't help but marvel at the cyclist who has just cycled down the sidewalk of the busy commercial section of Parc Avenue and then placed his bicycle right in the road at the intersection so that every car has to make a wide turn around him.

Amazingly, he waits for the light to turn green, but then rides along St. Viateur on the wrong side of the street. Which brings me to the first law of cycling:

If you are an idiot off a bike, you will be just as much one on a bike.

I have seen the light

September is a wonderful time of year for biking. The weather is more temperate, the bike paths are less congested and the leaves are starting to change colour. Unfortunately, the days are getting shorter and yet many cyclists blithely continue to bike around without any form of illumination during the hours of darkness.

These phantoms of the night are difficult to make out for other cyclists on the paths and streets of Montreal; so I can imagine how invisible they are for motorists.

Do yourselves, and the rest of us a favour and light up!

A ride for every pocketbook

A ride to St. Anne de Bellevue via Boulevard Gouin and return via the Lakeshore allowed me to see three very different levels of boating experience. At the Canal de St. Anne, your everyday motorboat could be seen locking through.

While at the Old Port, another cruise ship was in port although only available to European travellers.

But if you have half a million to throw away for a week's worth of ultimate luxury, you can walk up the gangway of the Blue Moon.

Boat watchers' dream

After watching all the Tall ships motor down the river near Morrisburg earlier this week, I saw them berthed at the Old Port over the weekend as I weaved through the crowds toward the Lachine Canal. Funny how this expression of old technology that is a sailing vessel attracts so much more interest than the modern ocean racer does pictured in the foreground.

To round out the flotilla, a cruise ship and a Navy frigate were also in the harbour; two very different updates on ship technology. I wonder which is the more expensive to run? And I wonder how many people realized that the orange line floating in the water is an oil boom?

I like clouds

Tropical storm Leo passed to the south of Montreal and Cornwall this week. In Lake St. Francis, the lake that isn't a lake portion of the St. Lawrence River between Cornwall and Valleyfield, there was not much wind or rain, but alot of clouds making for some lovely sunsets.

Derek's Point, Port Colborne

Always an enjoyable ride along the Welland Canal bike path even though early morning rides this time of year start in the dark. Derek's Point is at the north end of an island created by an old and a new section of the Canal at Port Colborne. The old section is a spillway that allows water to enter the Canal system while Lock 8 is situated in the new section.



Looking north towards old Robin Hood mill

To get from Derek's Point to the next portion of the bike path, you have to cross a specially constructed bridge for path users only. Unfortunately, the trail administrators are very cautious about not letting motorized vehicles on the path so you have to almost stop to get around the partial barrier at each end.

In any case, it was a pleasant ride down to Welland and the sun did eventual come up over the canal by the time I got back to Derek's Point.