Walk With Me 10, Lake Superior
Remember when I told you that my love could be a moody bitch sometimes? Well, she's in a hell of a mood today. The trio and I froze our faces off to get some pictures!
That lighthouse is so tall! The tower itself is 36 feet high, and the walls it sit on are an additional 14 feet above average water levels. 50 feet high, from water to top, you guys.
I didn't capture it on the camera but the crowd of people coming to watch went crazy. The lake kissed the bridge!
Some more of the waves.
The top of these rocks are a high point, you have about 15-20 feet down to where the water level is, and easily 100 feet out to reach it.
#gitchigami doesn't care. She is one of the largest and most powerful bodies of freshwater in the world.
This bench is well away from the water, near the meritime museum's parkinglot. The parking lot itself was covered in sheets of ice.
Poor little bush!
And these poor babies just got back from their migration to be greated with awful winds and crazy cold!
While I envied the shots this guy must have gotten with his fancy camera so much closer to the lake than I, I did not envy how soaked he was from the spray!
The waves in the canal kept breaching the southern walls. The life rings had all been wrenched away from their places at the ladders.
Another of the lighthouse getting battered. I took as many pictures as I could as quickly as I could. I left the trio standing at the museum so they could be protected on two sides from the wind. But we were all raw and frozen.
We trotted ourselves across Canal Park and over to the Harbor side to get into the skywalk. Even protected several blocks in land, the water pressure from the harbor was so great it blew the manhole covers.
A couple pictures of the Irvin along the way out.
I hope you enjoyed walking with us! Have a great day!
Wow. This is really extraordinary then, just a tiny bit higher waves and probably the bridge may get damaged.
Quite treacherous when the waves build up like that in the channel, getting in and out with a boat can be really though. We had quite some waves to cope with when entering and leaving some harbours on the west coast of Denmark previous summer.
I think the bridge is probably pretty tough, this was only about 28 mph winds, we have had over 40 mph. There are some truly specatuclar photos of the bridge and light houses in powerful storms that put this one to shame.
She's taken down an ocean freighter, our moody lady.
I love this lake so much, it's why we came back, last year. If we had to be homeless, we may as well be homeless here, in a place we were so happy.
And, I cannot imagine being out in those waves! Was it a bigger boat, or your dingi?
My bigger boat. Actually, I believe waves with big wavelength is less of a problem with a small boat than a big boat - the small boat just stays on the surface and goes up and down and that's it - while the bigger boat, sticking deeper and being long enough to be really affected by the waves.
The waves probably wasn't that bad as what you've captured here, but still ... the dominant wind direction towards Denmark is from the west, and it's quite open there, the waves can travel for a long distance unhindered, building up as they do. Waves tend to grow bigger when they reach shallower water, and it is quite shallow water around Denmark, particularly closer to land. It is difficult to build harbors allowing for safe and easy entrance and exit under such conditions - some of the harbors we've seen had really crazy dimensions on the breakwater constructions.
We visited Thyborøen, it's a bigger harbour with great breakwater constructions, it's quite safe, but as the harbour entrance is right inside a natural channel (Limfjorden) it can be a bit rough getting in or out to the sea. We stayed there for a full day extra because the wind was so bad, it was quite crazy conditions even inside the harbour ... boat got covered with layers of salt due to the spray of seawater getting over the high walls, we got sand in our eyes while passing the beach despite the beach being behind a high wall, and we saw this fishing boat trying to get out to the sea, really fighting against the huge waves. Waves weren't that bad when we left, but still - relatively much power on the engine and still we were like barely moving in 1 knop while getting out, waves slamming the bow hard, long and uncomfortable long waiting time until we were long enough from land to turn 90 degrees, raise the sails and cut the engine.
Then there was this small fishing village ... the 13 years old son complained loudly that he was fed up with all the waves, so he decided to continue by bike, and we went to the nearest harbour. According to the harbour guide I found the harbour could be quite difficult, one should enter a channel with quite some waves and then turn 90 degrees to get into the fishing harbour (to the left was the industrial harbour, a no-go-zone, and straight ahead a low bridge if I remember right). Luckily they seemed to have been building more breakwaters since the harbour guide was made, so it wasn't that bad - but still quite stressful. With big waves from behind one gets great speed and not so much control. Really bad waves on shallow waters and the boat may even be rolled over. Even without waves, navigating inside a harbour with lots of wind is difficult. I think we spent like two hours extra on this harbour visit.
Wow that is some crazy weather and thank for sharing the great photos that you froze for.
It's super fun! We had no plans on going down to the lake today. But when we saw it from the bus on the way home we just had to stop!
I like doing things that are not planed they can be great times:)