Back on August 17th, the Sayano-Shushenska Hydro Dam in Siberia suffered a major accident, which cost at least 74 people their lives. It was not well reported in the press, certainly I didn’t see any pictures.
Now the Boston Globe has put together a major photo essay with amazing shots of the damage suffered, both in terms of human and material losses. Something worthwhile seeing. Time well wasted.
Reportedly it will take close to 880 million euros to fix.
I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Youtube, but I stumbled on this one quite by accident. It is hilarious. The original caption on Youtube reads: “Oh My got! The train has got to tornado epicentre.”
What puzzles me is, why do they have a video camera on a railroad car?
With the loading of the stone complete, the ship took off up river back to Hamilton. As luck would have it, the first four or five hours took us through the 1000 Islands portion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in daylight on a warm Sunday, which translated in many interesting sights. Along this portion of the river, one can find many interesting houses, mansions, even castles, as well as interesting landscapes. All pleasure boat traffic adds another dimension.
After half an hour or so, the town of Brockville, Ontario popped up along the shore. It is not often in North America that you see a skyline so dominated by church steeples. Seems to me though, that all this effort building separate churches would have been better spent in building houses for the poor and old folks. Wouldn’t one church have been more than enough? Oh wait, I digress.
Then there is Boldt’s Castle, talk about excess. But at least it is unique. Built by a wealthy industrialist eager to show off his fortune, it dominates the river’s shore for a good little while. This is one of the “outhouses” belonging to the castle, added on later.
The other extreme of living on the river is this:
But at least there isn’t a lot of grass to cut.
Lots of boat traffic must have meant a real headache for the captain and his crew.
Seadoos are a dime a dozen when the weather is right.
Cormorants make the most of a dead tree. I bet they are saying, ‘Finally a friggin’ tree without leaves. Now I can see properly. Why don’t they build more of these?’
And the Cayuhoga plowed forward, piloted by Duane, the first mate, who knew every nook-and-cranny on this sometimes very narrow waterway.
The company’s motto is displayed on the flag:
Actually, it says don’t give up the ship. I think I shot about 10 shots trying to get it right. Failed. What else is new….
And the company’s flag:
After the bridge at Gananoque (leading to the US), the river becomes wider and a little less interesting.
Once we exited the river and were back out onto Lake Ontario, we were treated to a beautiful sunset.
To be continued…
The 
actual route we took was this: (our route in red)
Lake Ontario from one end to another (east to west) is around 310 km. At the east end, we entered the Saint Lawrence Seaway and from there it is another 125 km to Cardinal, which is situated on the Canadian side of the river, just past the town of Prescott.
While out on Lake Ontario we deemed ourselves to be in the Caribbean. The air was warm, the water blue with just a few wispy clouds on yonder horizon. The crew told us though that things aren't always this quiet, especially in late October, November when the winds blow. When out in the open, the ship is basically on auto pilot, although 2 of the crew keep a sharp eye out at all times in the wheelroom.
After 12 hours of sailing, we entered the Seaway, just when darkness fell. We then retired to our room and watched a movie on satellite TV, The Poseidon Adventure. By the way, on a trip just before ours, an electrical surge had taken out most of the electronic equipment on board, such as TV's, satellite receivers, stereos etc. Apparently, they all lit up like Christmas trees. The second mate Ralph kindly donated his receiver for the duration of our stay.
The ship arrived at the corn unloading dock in Cardinal at around 3:00 in the morning, but we had no personal knowledge of that, as we were sound asleep. We did wake up not too much after that though went to motors for the self unloading boom were started, generating a noise so loud we thought a tornado just struck the ship.
The ship did not always have the option to unload itself, this contraption was added in the early seventies. Before self unloading was added, the ship had to use the unloading cranes offered by the various ports. Being able to unload itself allows it to visit a far greater range of ports, ports with or without unloading facilities.
Anyway, when we opened our door to go for yet another excellent breakfast in the galley, we immediately saw a feature that would be with us for the next 36 hours: white corn dust. It took that long to unload the ship, since the accepting hopper on the corn silo could only accommodate a tiny portion of what the unloading boom was actually capable of delivering. Fortunately for us, during the entire time the wind was away from our cabin, so that the actual dust we had to contend with was fairly minimal.
But the crew! Unbelievable how they were affected by this snow! Yet they all did their jobs throughout the long day, into the night and then into the day again.
Since it was another beautiful sunshiny day, we decided to disembark and explore the town of Cardinal. Now, Cardinal is not much of a town, there's the "Boars' Nest" (the local bar) and a few stores and restaurants and that is about it. A one horse town in its classic definition. But folks sure are friendly in Cardinal. Everybody we talked to wanted to talk some more. We met an 82-year-old man originally from Hong Kong who had just driven a van from Vancouver on his own, in order to meet his son who lives in 
Kingston. Then we met a fellow from Gatineau, Quebec who was there in his totally custom Western Star mini truck, which was actually a Toyota 4x4 Highlander converted. It had a sleeper, which he used for 
camping, dual fuel tanks, air brakes, air horn, air ride, and dual set of wheels on the back. Superb paint job on top of that. We also talked to some locals, who told us all about the glorious and not so glorious history of the Casco, the corn processing plant.
All that talking sure makes a man thirsty, so we ended up quaffing a few cool ones at the local (Royal Canadian) Legion, which just so happened to have a beautiful patio overlooking the river.
Next, we made it back to the ship. As we made our way thru security (we had to sign in and out every time we left), the security guard, who, apparently, had already talked to the locals about us, stated that if he would have known about us before he came on shift, he would have come and picked us up to drive us to a beautiful beach just down river near his home. Then, he said, I would have gone back home, changed into my work clothes and come here to work. Talk about friendly...
After supper, with the unloading process going on, we drifted back to the Legion once more to support their financial situation. Slightly inebriated, we were able to negotiate the ladder up to the ship's deck, where the dust created interesting halos around all the lights, the effects of which somewhat amplified by alcohol.
Despite the enormous roar of the self unloading boom's motors, we slept like rocks. The next day, same old
thing, more corn dust. Hard working crew. Seagulls. Legion.
Finally, around 7:00 Saturday nite, the unloading finished up. Quickly, the ship was prepared for sailing and at around 8:00 we were moving, heading for Prescott, just up river to take on a load of stone for Hamilton. Now, maneuvering a 600 ft ship in a fairly swift moving river is no child's play, so we watched intently from this wheelhouse as the captain and his crew guided the ship to its new mooring p
lace at the Prescott docks. Almost as soon as the ship stopped, the holds were opened and 3 front end loaders started dumping rocks onto stackers, which in turn, dumped their prized possessions into the holds of the ship. This went on throughout the nite, so, looking for a diversion, we decided to call a taxi to take us into the wild town of Prescott. Well, that is a bit of a lie, 2 bars, the first looked like it was a converted old K-mart type store with the lunch counter still in place. Slap a few draft dispensers on that very same counter and you got yourself a bar. Add some very loud music from a not so talented band and the scene is complete. The second establishment, just across the road, was of the strip club variety, so just as high class as the first one. After trying to chat up the woman in the taxi stand place (no go), we headed back to the ship. Loading was rapidly progressing. Too tired to help, despite many requests, we went to bed. Just as we got up again, loading was about to complete. 
To be continued...
A brand new company from Port Dover, Ontario, Lower Lakes Towing, decided to give it a go, had it towed to Sarnia, Ontario for some repairs and a paint job and renamed it the Cuyahoga, the first ship in their fleet. They now have 12. Where others couldn't, they made it work. After spending almost a week on the ship, we now understand why.
He took us around the ship, to the galley, the crews and officers mess, a quick peek in the engine room and then down through the tunnels underneath the holds back to the bow of the ship up to the wheelhouse, where we got a sneak preview of all the navigation equipment on board. After that it was time for dinner, so Doug the cook served us the first of many enjoyable meals, which we ate with the rest of the crew, while being introduced to all 17 of them.
ip was taking on a load of corn, 10,000 or so tons, to be shipped to the Casco plant in Cardinal, Ontario for processing there into corn syrup, starch and a host of other products too numerous to mention. Since there is only one sleeve loading the corn is tends to be a little slow, about 15 hours to load the ship. The entirely ship was loaded by 6:00 o'clock the next morning and it is a good thing that something woke us up (the lack of coffee in our veins) at that hour, otherwise we would have missed leaving port.
Soon we approached the bridges that allowed us out of the harbor. On a beautifully warm sunny morning, it was a sight to see, worth the price of admission alone. Fortunately, even the lift bridge was up, so we didn't have to ram it in order to get out.
blades that is changed, which in or decreases speed.
To be continued...
Hmm, some imaginative title, isn’t it?
Anyway, some shots from the last few days. First off, a female Baltimore Oriole at the feeder. They actually don’t eat ‘regular’ bird feed, but are attracted to the sugar water in the humming bird feeder.
Next, we have two shots of turkey vultures. The first one shows it being chased by a much smaller bird. Why, I don’t know, because vultures only eat dead stuff, so they are no threat to anything alive. So, instead of wasting its time and energy the dumb chaser bird could just be sitting back and relaxing. But I guess now I am into overanalyzing.
The last one is just of a vulture in mid-air showing off its wings. They tend to do a lot of gliding on air currents. all the while searching for dead stuff. Garbage (wo)men. Hope they are unionized.
I had some time yesterday afternoon to wrap up the siding of the gable end. Also was able to install the missing pieces in the soffit ceiling. So… all done now, save for some landscaping. Hopefully it will pass building inspection.
This was the design:
And this is what it looked like originally…picture from September 2007
Something that has always intrigued me about the picture in the previous post is the presence of the three guys in the bottom of the shot. I enlarged and cropped them this time, just to see if more can be discovered.
Who are they? Possibly Martinair employees? Mechanics perhaps, at least the two on the right, judging by their cover alls. The one on the left a supervisor perhaps. What were they doing?
And, even more intriguing, where are they now? The young man on the far right appears to be in his early twenties. That would make him in his early sixties today. Possibly retired, grandchildren, health problems, false teeth, etc. The other two appear even older, could be approaching seventy.
Sometimes life just seems to evaporate in the twinkling of an eye.
…that this big ol’ airliner carried me to The New World, in a literal as well as figurative sense. If I recall correctly, the plane left Amsterdam Schiphol at around 11:00 am, arriving in Detroit at 2:30 pm. A non stop flight. Eight short hours from a closed in, tightly controlled society with (still) old fashioned norms to a world where newness and non conformity seemed to be the thing of the day.
The plane itself, a Douglas DC-8 55F, serial no 45824/267, shown here with the registration number PH-MAS, was delivered to Overseas National Airlines (ONA) in June of 1966. It was then sold to Martin’s Air Charter (or Martinair) in October of 1968. Martinair then used it until early 1977 when it was sold back to the manufacturer Douglas Aircraft. After that, it was used by a variety of airlines, the last one being a Venezuelan outfit called Avianco, who used it as a freighter. It was last spotted in 2001 sitting at Miami International Airport in something called ‘Corrosion Corner’, likely an area used to store planes for stripping parts off them.
My picture above is actually a composite of two, taken with my Rollei Magic, which I had acquired a few months before the start of this trip. Second hand, of course. Unfortunately, I lost that camera on a later plane light in November of 1972. Color photography was still somewhat rare back then, because it was expensive. This shows the old style MAC livery colors very well. As far as I can tell, this is the oldest picture of PH-MAS on the web.
Since creating a blog post with Blogspot's own editor is a huge pain in the neck, I decided to download Live Writer, a blog editing tool, free, from Microsoft.
Rick Strahl says is the greatest thing since sliced bread and who am I to argue with him?
Just to see how it will handle pictures, I inserted the above shot of a recent snowfall.
Now it's time to see if this works! Let's publish!
Again, once you are on the regular, 3 lane portion of Hwy 403 towards Hamilton, stay in the second lane from the left, the middle lane. This takes you exactly to where you need to go. This picture shows where the Lincoln Alexander branches off from 403. About 2 km past this point, Hwy 403 narrows to 2 lanes. If you are in the middle lane, then you do not have to do anything.
You can breathe a sigh of relief now: traffic should get a lot lighter. From the Lincoln Alexander to Hwy 24 South to Simcoe is about 40 km. You'll pass through the city of Brantford. Note that there is also a Hwy 24 North exit, you do not wish to take that. You'll end up in Cambridge.
Hwy 24 can be divided in roughly three parts. The first part is done when after about 10 km, you reach a set of traffic lights. At the green light, drive straight through to the next set of lights (about 15 km). Once again, keep going straight. After that, at about 2 km, you will see the blue 'Norfolk County" sign. You are getting close!
From here on in, you will start seeing signs, spaced 1.2 km apart, pointing to Windham Rd 2, 3,4,5 etc. (There are also Townsend Rd going left (east) but ignore those. ) The road you are looking for is Windham Road 12. It obviously follows Windham Rd 11. There is a green and yellow John Deere farm machinery dealership just past Windham Rd 12. If you miss the road, simply turn into the parking lot of the dealership and make your way back through this parking lot to its Windham Road 12 exit.
Once you are on Hwy 403 (during rush hour this stretch could be slow to very slow travelling), then after about 3 km, you get to the point where the two separate parts of 403 meet. The trick here is to be in the second lane from the left.
By far, the best point to travel from here on in on the expressways is the second lane from left. This, at most points, automatically leads you to where you want to go. Note that at this point on the 403, the far left lane is reserved for High Occupancy Vehicles, that is, cars with 2 or more people in it. This special lane continues for about 15 km. If traffic is extremely slow, use it, otherwise don't bother, just stay in the middle lane of the three regular lanes.
Once you get past the 407 branch off, you need to once again get into the 2nd lane from the left on 403. Then, after about 5 km, Hwy 403 and QEW meet up. You'll see Lake Ontario in the distance and a huge Ford car factory with giant chimneys on left at that point. Slowly work your way over to the 2nd lane from left and stay there. This is what it looks like for the most part on QEW. If your luck is bad, this can be a slow stretch during rush hour.
After about 25 km on QEW, Hwy 403 reappears and branches off from QEW. This is the advance warning sign at Brant Street. Be in the middle lane here.
