Great Lakes

[warspite1]

Interesting article. I still struggle to imagine the sheer size of these huge inland waterways - the idea that there can be storms that sink ships on an inland sea is something I have difficulty getting my head around.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rface.html

[Mundy]

It gets rough out there.

One day I was on the shores of Lake Superior during rough seas. The noise on the beach was deafening from the waves.

I do miss watching the ships when I lived up there.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Mundy

It gets rough out there.

One day I was on the shores of Lake Superior during rough seas. The noise on the beach was deafening from the waves.

I do miss watching the ships when I lived up there.

warspite1

That is what I am talking about - look at the size of that mutha - on a lake! Nature is truly incredible, and the world a beautiful place - I have to visit at least one of these before I drop off this mortal coil...

[wings7]

The Great Lakes are truly a wonder of the world...they are like small oceans! [X(]

[Orm]

It might help to visualize just how large the Great Lakes are when you know that they cover a area that is slightly larger than the entire UK.

The Great Lakes: 244,106 square kilometre
UK: 243,610 square kilometre

[gexmex]

Those 1000' lakers are too big to leave the Great Lakes [8D]

Always a treat to see them when I lived up north.

[Mundy]

I've seen that one tied up in Duluth plenty of times.
 
[:)]
 
Sault St Marie is also worth a visit.
 
 

[rickier65]

Not to forget the SS Edmond Fitzgerald that sank in 1975 in one of the Great Lakes (Superior?) with the loss of all lives.

Rick

[gexmex]

ORIGINAL: Mundy

I've seen that one tied up in Duluth plenty of times.

[:)]

Sault St Marie is also worth a visit.

Agreed! The Soo Locks are VERY impressive.

[Capt. Harlock]

the idea that there can be storms that sink ships on an inland sea is something I have difficulty getting my head around.

You share that difficulty with Rudyard Kipling:

Fresh water has no right or call to dip over the horizon, pulling down and pushing up the hulls of big steamers, no right to tread the slow, deep sea dance-step between wrinkled cliffs; nor to roar in on weed and sand beaches between vast headlands that run out for leagues into bays and sea fog. Lake Superior … engulfs and wrecks and drives ashore like a fully accredited ocean–-a hideous thing to find in the heart of a continent.

Rudyard Kipling, Letters of Travel

[Mundy]

At least if you're shipwrecked, you can still drink.

[;)]

[Fallschirmjager]

They used small escort carriers in WW2 as training carriers on the Great Lakes and there were many crashed and pilot fatalities due to pilot navigation errors and bad weather.

It is neat that a lake could simulate the Pacific and serve for water navigation.

[Zap]

Lake Michigan, makes Chicago livable during the summer heat. Those breezes are just wonderful. But noticeable is the fish smell (if your on the beach0 from all the dead fish.

[baloo7777]

Was born in Chicago and visited my Dad their. Think less lake and more inland sea. I've been on the shore at a resteraunt and watched waves in a thunderstorm come crashing over the rock walls at least 15 feet or more. They were as fierce as anything I've seen here on the CT/RI shore.

[Fred98]

One time I was visiting Canada. I was in one of the plains provinces staying on a farm. The farmer had 2 lovely daughters who were about 18 and 20 or so.

He commented that neither daughter had ever seen the ocean!

At the time I was astonished!

[Zap]

Which of the two daughters did you marry.

[ravincravin]

OMG, a farmer's daughter joke without a punchline.

When I lived in Michigan we use to go up North to my friends cottage and watch the freighters going by on their way to the Soo locks. My friend use to be a deck hand on the freighters until the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking. He got out and joined the US Engineers who surveyed and dredged the Great Lakes. He eventually became a Captain.

Here's a picture of the Edmund Fitzgerald. They ring it's bell every November 11th at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.

It's hard to believe how big those ships are until you get close and see them navigate those small channels up near the Soo.

[Zap]

That picture shows a warped hull. I'm sure that's a photographic error.

[dazoline II]

My father sailed on the lakes from the time he was 18 until about 5 years before he passed. Went from deckhand to ships Captain and then as a ships Pilot on lake Ontario. He had plenty of stories and said the lake that always scared him the most was lake Erie. Its so shallow and broad storms whip the lake up very quickly and if your in a small boat it can get quite dangerous. I remember a picture of him in the Port Colborne newspaper launching a ships lifeboat to go rescue some fishermen who got chucked into the water because of such a storm.

Looking at some of the pictures I remember as a young teen accompanying him on some of his pilot harbour moves and steering some of those big ships. Quite an experience for a 14 year old.

[Mundy]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

They used small escort carriers in WW2 as training carriers on the Great Lakes and there were many crashed and pilot fatalities due to pilot navigation errors and bad weather.

It is neat that a lake could simulate the Pacific and serve for water navigation.

Not escort carriers per se. Two Great Lakes side-wheel steamers were converted to dedicated training carriers, operating out of Chicago on Lake Michigan. USS Wolverine IX-43 and USS Sable IX-81. Lifted this pic of Sable from NavSource.

Safe to say they won't be showing up in WITP-AE.

Nice thing about the fresh water is that planes that went in there are beautifully preserved. I know of an F4F-3, and a Midway veteran SBD-2 were both pulled out and restored. The Wildcat is flying and I've seen it at Oshkosh. I think the SB2U at the Naval Air Museum came out of there too.