Cruise ships have returned to the Great Lakes

The Clelia II will be back early Saturday morning with a new group of passengers who boarded in Toronto and will get off here, after which a new group will board here for Toronto, leaving Duluth late Saturday afternoon. It is a one week trip each way. The cruise ship will be back in two weeks for her 4th of 6 trips here this summer.

Early in the morning of July 18, I was driving madly toward the Lift Bridge so I could get over it before it went up for the approaching cruise ship Clelia. I wanted to have the sun behind me, like it always is when you are on the Park Point side of the ship canal. As soon as I parked my car, and ran out to the ship canal and then to the South Pier light at the end of the south pier, I noticed something strange, the sun was on the wrong side, I was facing the sun. I knew these were bad times but I hadn’t heard that anyone was moving the sun around.

I of course realize now one of the things that happens every summer, in fact, it is the reason we have summer; the sun reaches further to the north, giving us summer and giving Australia winter. Well, live and learn; I tried to make the best of it, and took a lot of pictures anyway.

While I was chasing the sun in the wrong direction, Nina Padden was just waking up in her room at the Sheraton Hotel. Nina is a tour manager for Travel Dynamics International, owners of the Clelia and she had flown in to join the ship in Duluth.

I found out later that day, when Nina was giving a group a tour of the ship, that she is one incredible person, and is certainly the best tour manager in the world. As befits such a person, that morning, she jumped out of bed, put on her running clothes, picked up her camera and started to run to the ship canal.

She lucked out by staying in a hotel on the sun side of the ship canal. She got some great pictures. Of course, I on the south pier, had no idea that someone from the ship was here before the ship itself arrived, much less taking pictures just across the ship canal from me with the sun behind her.

I thought about the rest of us, and how many of us would jump out of bed at 5 am in the morning and run down to the ship canal. Why would Nina be so excited about the arrival of her work place on the water. Remember what I told you, she is the best tour manager in the world, and good tour managers have lots on enthusiasm and that’s how much enthusiasm she has.

Now after a run, most of us probably go home and take a shower, totally forgetting we live right next to the largest freshwater lake in the world. On her way back to the hotel she jumped in the lake to cool off. Perhaps she wouldn’t have done it if like us, she knew how cold it was, but knowing Nina, that probably didn’t faze her. She was born in Moscow and knows all about winter and cold.

Flash forward to midafternoon; I arrived at the ship for my tour and met Nina. I like to impress people who are visiting Duluth on a ship and often give them a photo I took of the ship when it arrived. She told me that would be nice but she ….

… and she told me the story I just shared with you. Happily she sent me her pictures and I have used both in the collage above (click picture for larger version).

The big picture of the ship at the left is of course hers since you can see the sun shining directly on it, while my picture at the right is dark. Lining the bottom is a picture she took after making a quick stop in her run down to the ship canal. Finally, I had waited long enough for the sun to shine ‘correctly’ and got the side shot, lower middle, as the ship was lining up at her dock at the DECC.

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