Oshawa Harbour — ISABELLE G, OCEAN A. GAUTHIER, (OCEAN) LAPRAIRIE, NACC QUEBEC

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Oshawa Harbour — ISABELLE G, OCEAN A. GAUTHIER, (OCEAN) LAPRAIRIE, NACC QUEBEC

This is another one of those storytelling posts where I’m not going to dump the photos all in one gallery.

I had a rough idea of when ISABELLE G was going to show up today. She must have made good time because when I checked the clock and then checked MarineTraffic, she was already here. So I grabbed the camera and jumped in the car and raced for the port. She was out at the anchorage. NACC QUEBEC was still docked. And… LAPRAIRIE was still docked. Odd. I kept peering over the fence to check LAPRARIE for signs of life. Nothing. Odd.

Looking off to the horizon I saw another tug coming. I thought it was SALVAGE MONARCH at first, but it wasn’t. It was OCEAN A. GAUTHIER who was once known by her previous owner as VACHON or simply COW. You don’t really understand why this tugboat was called COW until you see the size of it. It’s huge. Here are a few photos of OCEAN A. GAUTHIER.

Yeah. That third photo is OCEAN A. GAUTHIER beside NACC QUEBEC. I did that mostly to give you an idea of size comparison. She’s a beautiful tugboat and I won’t make any more COW jokes.

Moo. 🐄 Ok. One more.

So OCEAN A. GAUTHIER and ISABELLE G chummed around for a while. And then a while longer. And then a while longer. And I was beginning to wonder what the heck was going on. Eventually OCEAN A. GAUTHIER left ISABELLE G and came into the port and docked beside LAPRAIRIE. I have no inside information, but by the looks of it, LAPRAIRIE wouldn’t start.

When I left two and a half hours later… LAPRAIRIE still hadn’t started.

So I don’t know what’s going on. But I hope they’re able to get LAPRAIRIE going.

P.S. These shots are terrible, but with the zoom all the way out I could barely see CSL TADOUSSAC heading for Bowmanville.

Port Of Oshawa Update – May 13th, 2020

Eric Vice Port Updates, Site News 0 Comment

I just updated the schedule page to reflect changes in the last 24 hours.

ALGOMA INNOVATOR appears to have changed it’s mind. It’s now heading to Hamilton instead of Oshawa. Repairs, perhaps. Or perhaps an intermediate stop.

ISABELLE G should arrive here around 2:00 pm today or thereabouts.

NACC QUEBEC arrived last night. 😴

More pictures soon. I will probably go down when ISABELLE G arrives so I can shoot her and NACC QUEBEC at the same time and get new pictures of NACC QUEBEC’s tacky bridge curtains. They look like they were stolen out of a funeral home in 1972. 🤣

In site maintenance news, I also noticed this morning that I didn’t put Toronto or Cobourg on the Locations menu. That has been fixed.

Photos From A Past Life

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I’ve had a really tough day today, at the end of a moderately tough life in the last ten years.

In some ways my life has been incredible blessed twice.

In other ways it seems sometimes I cannot escape a terrible curse. Today was one of the curse days.

So let’s talk about happy things. Let me dig through my collection of old photos to the time that I worked at a now-defunct zoo that shall remain nameless. I did a lot of things there. Photography. Graphic Design. Guest Relations. And a little bit of animal handling, mostly with regard to our Rothchild’s Giraffe Morgan.

I’m just scrolling through my photo archive posting these in no particular order. Some of these were taken with my phone. Some were taken with a DSLR.

Our pygmy goats were always one of the most popular animals at the zoo. On top of being incorrigible mooches, the babies would often climb through (or under) the fence and mingle among the zoo guests. This particular photo was of two of my favourite goats having a snuggle together.

Here’s something you don’t often see. A white lion (Alex) and a ‘standard’ African lion (Athena) chumming together. Athena was significantly older but they got along fine.

He looks quite angry, but in truth I think he was yawning.

That’s all for now. Maybe another post of memories sometime soon.

LAPRAIRIE by Paul Ingram

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I’m kind of a bear when I wake up in the morning. Usually my first movements of the day are getting the dog off of me, and feeling around on my nightstand like a blind man trying to find my glasses and my phone. And then we settle in on the daily morning quest to make all those annoying red dots with numbers on them disppear.

The red dots. They are the bane of my existance.

Don’t laugh. I know a guy who had that many. Constantly.

First Facebook. Blah blah blah blah… they still haven’t figured out what that ship is yet. Yeah yeah blah blah.

Instagram… more of the same. More of the same. Always more of the same.

Check MarineTraffic. ALGOMA INNOVATOR was due here yesterday and is still in Lake Huron. So much for ETA’s. Oh good… HAPPY RANGER made it to the lake. Not sure what that two-step with OCEAN K RUSBY was about but… it’s over. I can breathe now.

Breathe.

E-mail. It’s always my last stop of the morning. Intentionally. E-mail is almost invariably always one of two things. SPAM or BILLS. Sometimes I skip e-mail completely if I’m not in the mood.

An e-mail from… a BIRD? This is unprecedented. From a SMALL RAVEN? In that moment folks, I was a hair’s width from swiping it into the spam bin when I read the subject line, which contained the word LAPRAIRIE. My eyes were immediately open. It read:

1200×800 pixels (@16 1/2 x 11 inches), 965 kb, 300 dpi

Combining photos posted on The Prescott Anchor – May, 2020

At the present time I am not able to log in to my Facebook acct so am unable to post this. Paul Ingram

Paul had taken a bunch of my photos of LAPRAIRIE and made a watercolour out of it. 🤯

Below it was the familiar box from my iPhone that basically said “Hey, they sent an attachment, do you wanna view it?”

I admit I hesitated a second. I felt like Indiana Jones about to pop open the Ark of the Covenant and take a look inside. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to process what I saw when I clicked. But I clicked anyway. And I couldn’t process it.

LAPRAIRIE by Paul Ingram

I’m not a cryer but I was pretty much overwhelmed emotionally the moment it loaded. My eyes have been wet all morning. This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.

As per Paul’s advice I’m going to take it to Staples after this pandemic nonsense is over and get it printed on matte paper and framed.

Thank you my friend. You blew me away today.