I remember crossing the lake from Houghton to Isle Royale on the Ranger III as a 13 year-old in the early '70s. The outbound trip was uneventful. The return was a different story. Early that morning a violent thunderstorm passed through and the lake was essentially turned into moving mountains. As we crested each wave and started on the downside, you could hear the props come out of the water. I went out on the top deck at one point (the lower deck was being washed over) and soon found myself looking up at a wave just to starboard. Luckily it didn't break over the deck. I'm guessing the deck was at least 20 feet above the water line, so that was a really big wave. I went back below in a hurry.
alfresco wrote:
Thanks all.
Lake Superior is quite awesome. A favorite story of Superior is of a Norwegian cargo ship captain taking his ship through the Sault locks, going into Lake Superior. take this with a grain of "story', probably based in fact but, well, that's the beauty of stories.
Anyway - the lock keeper (or whatever the technical term is) told the captain he should hold up in Whitefish Bay for a few days, enough time for a storm to pass. The ship captain's response was something to the effect of "<expletive> that, it's only a lake!" and continued on across the lake.
When the captain came back through the locks a couple days later the lock keeper saw a truly changed man - someone who had no sleep for a week and was run haggard fighting the lake. The captain said, so the story goes, the seas were worse than anything the ocean had thrown at him.
As to the light - Mclain State Park Lighthouse, north entry of the Keweenaw waterway.
Feel free to post photos of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee ...Show more →
