I lived in Michigan and often went to Canada, love it there. I think I have been to Niagara about 40 times and used to go to Toronto and Stratford even more frequently. Toronto sometimes up to 20-30 times a year, sometimes just day and evening trips then driving back with snooze breaks at each rest stop down 401. Windsor was just across the river so was there a lot to go to dinner, book stores and later the casino. Got pissed as hell when Bush made it so we had to have a passport, before that our driver's license was adequate
Mike, you may be correct about a hurricane hitting Florida in 87 years, which would be the so-called "Yankee" hurricane of 1935; but Kate was a tropical storm that hit in 1985, as you know. Yes, that is quite a feat, that a hurricane came to Florida in November, and November 10th is the latest record date for a hurricane making landfall from the EAST, breaking the November 4th, 1935 "Yankee" storm near Miami Beach. Today is also, speaking of 50-foot waves, now that you mentioned it, today is the anniversary of the infamous "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" storm that sank that great ship. I am not sure of the individual wave heights that day; they COULD have approached 50 feet. That gale center had its' own hurricane-force gales and prompted flash flood watches, a high wind warning, a tornado watch all for Central New York through 5 P.M. and a band of cold front thundershowers in the afternoon; it was a windy, muggy 70 degrees. The high wind warning was till midnight. It was a storm for the weather annals, that's for sure. Maybe you might remember that storm, Laura.
I remember that storm well. I also remember the Fitz. I used to drive down and sit on the shores of the Detroit River at Belle Isle and watch the boats go by. Saw the Fitz many times as it traveled up and down the river. I used to spend a lot of time up in the Upper Peninsula too and went to the lighthouse at Whitefish Point where they have the bell recovered from the wreck. An old ore carrier that is now a museum in Sault Ste Marie has one of the lifeboats from it that is twisted and torn as if a giant and ripped it apart. Made me never want to go out on that lake.
I have also many times been to the November 10th memorial service as Mariners Church down by the tunnel to Canada in Detroit, the place mentioned in Gordon Lightfoot's song. At the end of the service they used to ring a ship's bell each time as they read out the names of the sailors on the Fitz but I hear that is no longer done although there is still a service yearly for lost mariners
I wonder why they stopped ringing the bell? The song says at the first service the church bell rang 29 times for each men on the Edmund Fitzgerald. I didn't know about the ship disaster till the song came out a year later around Halloween. That lake can be notorious for storms, as any of the Great Lakes can be trouble if a ship were caught out in the water well away from land, but with today's modern Internet and computer models, there likely will never be a repeat of that shipping disaster. Ship captains can have access to real-time observations, models, real-time satellite pics, real-time radar, and updated weather forecasts. Sailors had none of that stuff in 1975. They DID have access to Marine Band VHF/UHF radio channels, reports from Coast Guard stations, and anyone with an AM/FM radio could get the forecast from your favorite music station. Plus newspapers. NOAA Weather Radio was only just beginning to be rolled out. There was no 24-hour news except stations like Newsradio 88, WCBS at NYC, or KYW Philadelphia and what used to be the old WTOP in Washington, D.C. That was 1500 on the AM dial. All of that is a whole 'nother story, as they say. There was no Weather Channel, FOX Weather, the Accu-Weather Channel, or Weather Nation TV. Even the Weather Channel wasn't enough to prevent disasters like the Andrea Gail during the infamous Halloween Storm of 1991. Nor was our modern Internet enough to prevent the Al Farro disaster, where a hurricane in the Atlantic killed 33 sailors, worse than the Fitz in 1975. What hurricane was that? It was the J storm, I am sure. The Al Farro was a ship that was disabled, no power, and did not get assistance from a passing freighter that was traveling in the opposite direction, away from the path of the hurricane. So, that ship was a sitting duck for the hurricane. I am not sure WHY the captain wasn't taking emergency action, or if he knew a hurricane was coming on his route. They had taken off from Puerto Rico. It had to have been a frightening end for all hands onboard. Just like the Andrea Gail. That fishing boat was the subject of the movie "The Perfect Storm". Anyway, modern technology in America has, for the most part, prevented repeats of those 3 ship disasters. Once in a while, it's rare, but they DO occur. Life on the high seas and Great Lakes can be such that, you should always prepare for storms when sailing on those waters.You were probably shocked by the loss of the Fitz. Every year on this date, I play that song on either You Tube or Spotify.
They stopped doing it in response to the families who requested it cease just a few years ago. They said it went on long enough and that it should again be back to being entirely about all mariners and not focus just on the crew of the Fitz.
I've seen storms out on Superior and waves crashing against the cliffs of Pictured Rocks and often splashing over the top of them and imagining how terrifying it would be to be out on that lake during one of those storms. I recall one time being told that the Coast Guard crews are warned if they fall off the boat into the lake they are unlikely to survive if the boat doesn't notice them right away because of the frigid water year round. On one of my visits to Grand Marais a fishing crew died of hypothermia in the lake only about a month before when their boat overturned. I've been in the lake and my feet went numb very fast. I remember one time sitting up there at Whitefish Point and wondering about the crew being so close to safety and the horror of their last minutes. One scientific study said that any of the crew that might have been below decks when she sank could have lasted for an hour or so in air pockets which I think is terrifying to realize you are hundreds of feet below the surface with no way to get there. I think of that scene in The Perfect Storm when the boat is going down and the men below decks know they are going to die soon. Superior is a beautiful lake but scary as all get out. I've only been out on it once and that was enough for me.
Well, I understand why they would stop doing it. A service for ALL mariners, living or dead, would seem appropriate. I would not want to be on Lake Superior. Water temps I think, the surface water, is probably no higher than 55 all year, I think. Not a lake to go swimming in even if it was 90 with a dew point of 75!! They also get frequent strong cold fronts from Canada with high winds. Superior they say, never gives up her dead, when the gales of November come early!!
The water temp can get into the 60s in July, August and September but most of the year the temps are in the 30s and 40s at best. I have dipped into the lake and gotten out immediately just to cool off when camping up there and the air temp was in the 90s but yeah, never gone swimming in it.
I swam in the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1972, and I think it was in the mid 60's water temperature. It was that numbing kind of cold. Yes, Lake Superior is that cold; I have seen that on daily lake temperature charts you can get online. Lake Ontario meanwhile, can be as high as 76 on rare occasions, and that is one reason why the lake effect snow guns of Ontario and November can get so productive so early, even in October. lake Erie can go as high as 80 or 81, and that would be record territory; that did happen just a few years back. That is swimming pool temperature!!
I lived in Michigan and often went to Canada, love it there. I think I have been to Niagara about 40 times and used to go to Toronto and Stratford even more frequently. Toronto sometimes up to 20-30 times a year, sometimes just day and evening trips then driving back with snooze breaks at each rest stop down 401. Windsor was just across the river so was there a lot to go to dinner, book stores and later the casino. Got pissed as hell when Bush made it so we had to have a passport, before that our driver's license was adequate
Mike, you may be correct about a hurricane hitting Florida in 87 years, which would be the so-called "Yankee" hurricane of 1935; but Kate was a tropical storm that hit in 1985, as you know. Yes, that is quite a feat, that a hurricane came to Florida in November, and November 10th is the latest record date for a hurricane making landfall from the EAST, breaking the November 4th, 1935 "Yankee" storm near Miami Beach. Today is also, speaking of 50-foot waves, now that you mentioned it, today is the anniversary of the infamous "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" storm that sank that great ship. I am not sure of the individual wave heights that day; they COULD have approached 50 feet. That gale center had its' own hurricane-force gales and prompted flash flood watches, a high wind warning, a tornado watch all for Central New York through 5 P.M. and a band of cold front thundershowers in the afternoon; it was a windy, muggy 70 degrees. The high wind warning was till midnight. It was a storm for the weather annals, that's for sure. Maybe you might remember that storm, Laura.
I remember that storm well. I also remember the Fitz. I used to drive down and sit on the shores of the Detroit River at Belle Isle and watch the boats go by. Saw the Fitz many times as it traveled up and down the river. I used to spend a lot of time up in the Upper Peninsula too and went to the lighthouse at Whitefish Point where they have the bell recovered from the wreck. An old ore carrier that is now a museum in Sault Ste Marie has one of the lifeboats from it that is twisted and torn as if a giant and ripped it apart. Made me never want to go out on that lake.
I have also many times been to the November 10th memorial service as Mariners Church down by the tunnel to Canada in Detroit, the place mentioned in Gordon Lightfoot's song. At the end of the service they used to ring a ship's bell each time as they read out the names of the sailors on the Fitz but I hear that is no longer done although there is still a service yearly for lost mariners
I wonder why they stopped ringing the bell? The song says at the first service the church bell rang 29 times for each men on the Edmund Fitzgerald. I didn't know about the ship disaster till the song came out a year later around Halloween. That lake can be notorious for storms, as any of the Great Lakes can be trouble if a ship were caught out in the water well away from land, but with today's modern Internet and computer models, there likely will never be a repeat of that shipping disaster. Ship captains can have access to real-time observations, models, real-time satellite pics, real-time radar, and updated weather forecasts. Sailors had none of that stuff in 1975. They DID have access to Marine Band VHF/UHF radio channels, reports from Coast Guard stations, and anyone with an AM/FM radio could get the forecast from your favorite music station. Plus newspapers. NOAA Weather Radio was only just beginning to be rolled out. There was no 24-hour news except stations like Newsradio 88, WCBS at NYC, or KYW Philadelphia and what used to be the old WTOP in Washington, D.C. That was 1500 on the AM dial. All of that is a whole 'nother story, as they say. There was no Weather Channel, FOX Weather, the Accu-Weather Channel, or Weather Nation TV. Even the Weather Channel wasn't enough to prevent disasters like the Andrea Gail during the infamous Halloween Storm of 1991. Nor was our modern Internet enough to prevent the Al Farro disaster, where a hurricane in the Atlantic killed 33 sailors, worse than the Fitz in 1975. What hurricane was that? It was the J storm, I am sure. The Al Farro was a ship that was disabled, no power, and did not get assistance from a passing freighter that was traveling in the opposite direction, away from the path of the hurricane. So, that ship was a sitting duck for the hurricane. I am not sure WHY the captain wasn't taking emergency action, or if he knew a hurricane was coming on his route. They had taken off from Puerto Rico. It had to have been a frightening end for all hands onboard. Just like the Andrea Gail. That fishing boat was the subject of the movie "The Perfect Storm". Anyway, modern technology in America has, for the most part, prevented repeats of those 3 ship disasters. Once in a while, it's rare, but they DO occur. Life on the high seas and Great Lakes can be such that, you should always prepare for storms when sailing on those waters.You were probably shocked by the loss of the Fitz. Every year on this date, I play that song on either You Tube or Spotify.
They stopped doing it in response to the families who requested it cease just a few years ago. They said it went on long enough and that it should again be back to being entirely about all mariners and not focus just on the crew of the Fitz.
I've seen storms out on Superior and waves crashing against the cliffs of Pictured Rocks and often splashing over the top of them and imagining how terrifying it would be to be out on that lake during one of those storms. I recall one time being told that the Coast Guard crews are warned if they fall off the boat into the lake they are unlikely to survive if the boat doesn't notice them right away because of the frigid water year round. On one of my visits to Grand Marais a fishing crew died of hypothermia in the lake only about a month before when their boat overturned. I've been in the lake and my feet went numb very fast. I remember one time sitting up there at Whitefish Point and wondering about the crew being so close to safety and the horror of their last minutes. One scientific study said that any of the crew that might have been below decks when she sank could have lasted for an hour or so in air pockets which I think is terrifying to realize you are hundreds of feet below the surface with no way to get there. I think of that scene in The Perfect Storm when the boat is going down and the men below decks know they are going to die soon. Superior is a beautiful lake but scary as all get out. I've only been out on it once and that was enough for me.
Well, I understand why they would stop doing it. A service for ALL mariners, living or dead, would seem appropriate. I would not want to be on Lake Superior. Water temps I think, the surface water, is probably no higher than 55 all year, I think. Not a lake to go swimming in even if it was 90 with a dew point of 75!! They also get frequent strong cold fronts from Canada with high winds. Superior they say, never gives up her dead, when the gales of November come early!!
The water temp can get into the 60s in July, August and September but most of the year the temps are in the 30s and 40s at best. I have dipped into the lake and gotten out immediately just to cool off when camping up there and the air temp was in the 90s but yeah, never gone swimming in it.
I swam in the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1972, and I think it was in the mid 60's water temperature. It was that numbing kind of cold. Yes, Lake Superior is that cold; I have seen that on daily lake temperature charts you can get online. Lake Ontario meanwhile, can be as high as 76 on rare occasions, and that is one reason why the lake effect snow guns of Ontario and November can get so productive so early, even in October. lake Erie can go as high as 80 or 81, and that would be record territory; that did happen just a few years back. That is swimming pool temperature!!