Carlz Boats: Bulk Carrier BLACKY

Carlz Boats: Bulk Carrier BLACKY: Boxing Day is an extra day off after Christmas Day, where many Canadian herd themselves to shopping malls and big stores for super dea...

Bulk Carrier BLACKY (Revisited)

Boxing Day is an extra day off after Christmas Day, where many Canadians herd 👥🐮 themselves into shopping malls and big 📦 box stores for super deals or 'bargoons'. However if you're a boat-lubber and there's only a few days left before the Seaway closes for the season, you may instead boot 🚙 it down to the St. Lawrence to see remaining salties exit the Great Lakes for warmer or trans Atlantic destinations, and lakers completing transits and discharges before laying up for the winter. Though it was only -11C and -18C in the wind, the drive was quite worthwhile as we saw four different types of ships motoring like a bat 🦇 out of hell 👿, two going in each direction. Snapped 📷 here is the 607' bulk carrier BLACKY heading downbound on her way to the Eisenhower Lock, near Massena, NY.

You might even say we were "lucky 🍀 ducks 🦆 " to come across what many would suggest is a 'very politically-incorrect' name while actually it's a name of a duck, just like all the other water fowl named green hulled salties that trade the Great Lakes under the Canadian Forest Navigation (CanForNav) banner. Owned by Navarone Marine Enterprises of Athens, Greece 🇬🇷  the "down"- bound BLACKY was built in 2008 in China, and flies the flag of Cyprus 🇨🇾.
Just like her duck boat fleetmate, SHOVELLER (http://carlzboats.blogspot.ca/2012/08/bulk-carrier-shoveler.html), the BLACKY frequents Toronto's Redpath pier with sugar from Brazil then usually flocks off to the Lakehead to pick up a load grain.
With my wife Janice and our dog Tanner shivering on the Morrisburg, Ontario dock, the BLACKY passes by in the background on her way to the sunny 🌞 and hot 🌴climates of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Can We Come Too?? 😁

Carlz Boats: Bulk Carrier HELOISE

Carlz Boats: Bulk Carrier HELOISE: On our way back from a weekend in Toronto, we found the 611' Panamanian bulk carrier HELOISE  just above Prescott, ON making good tim...

Bulk Carrier HELOISE

On our way back from a weekend in Toronto on December 9th, we found the 611' Panamanian flagged bulk carrier HELOISE, which means "famous warrior", above Prescott, Ontario making good time downbound on her way to Trois-Riviere, Quebec. Within minutes, she met another bulk carrier, the Algoma Central  owned 730' ALGOMA SPIRIT heading upbound to Hamilton.

Then, no sooner had the HELOISE battled the wake of the SPIRIT, the 479' tanker SHAMROCK JUPITER also registered in Panama speedily met across from Ogdensburg, also on her way to Hamilton. Later in the afternoon we came across the HELOISE again near Cardinal this time meeting another Panamanian flagged vessel, the 479' tanker NORTH CONTENDER sitting high and making her way to Sarnia to pick a load of petroleum products.

The end of this year's navigation season for the St. Lawrence Seaway is coming soon hence every minute is so important as salties and lakers hurry to exchange their cargoes for another, and then get out of the Great Lakes and canal systems before the ice arrives. As of this morning, all three salties have cleared the seaway and are well on their way to ports beyond. Continued safe passage to all until we meet again.

Update - April 26, 2020

The HELOISE was once again rushing to get herself out of the Great Lakes and Seaway before the system closed for the shipping season when I snapped her at Loyalist Park near Mariatown on December 26, 2014. When returning to the Great Lakes the following year, she's be flying the flag of Liberia and named CAPE which  barely covered her previous name in Jeff Cameron's photo of her on the Welland Canal on April 18, 2016. An odd name for sure when called just "CAPE" because most of us would think it was named after a large point extended into the water like Cape Spear or Cape Vincent. In this case though as suggested by Great Lakes ships expert Isaac Pennock, she is named after the Cape Teal which is a duck, or a bird that all bulk carriers owned or chartered to Montreal based Canfornav are named after. A no brainer except all of there other ships are green hulled. Make things complicated for us or what? Regardless of whatever she's called, it good to see she's till operating and currently downbound on Lake Ontario. After all it's not the name that makes the ship, or is it?

Hey to see more Great Lakes and ocean-going vessel photos, be sure to check out this great website: http://www.greatlakesships.ca. You'll be glad you did.

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