Time Again For Sailing Ships ~

This past weekend provided another opportunity to view,

closer this time,

those beautiful sailing ships from times past.

Duluth hosted once more a Tall Ships Festival.

Nine amazing tall masted ships sailed into Minnesota's Duluth harbor, 

attracting attention wherever their masts could be seen.

The first to arrive were the Pride of Baltimore II, a 157' two masted schooner, 

the Norwegian white SS Sorlandet, a fully rigged 210' three masted ship built in 1927,

and the Privateer Lynx, a 122' two masted schooner.

~ SS Sorlandet ~

This ship is the oldest fully rigged ship in the world still in operation.

Built as a training vessel, she helped represent Norway at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago.

During World War II the ship became damaged, but was restored and read to sail again in 1948.

Her first engine was installed in 1958. 

~ U.S. Brig Niagara ~

198' two masted brig.

This ship is a reconstruction of the brig used by

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to win victory in the

1813 Battle of Lake Erie. 

~ The two masted 79' Schooner Hindu shares the water with boats and ships from a more modern era. ~

Trying to capture images of sailing ships only was not easy in the Duluth harbor

busy with ore ships, cruise ships, and various boats large and small.

~~~~~

Late Summer in Two Harbors

~ Two Harbors Lighthouse and the Crusader II ~

~ Two Harbors Breakwater ~

                                                                                          

~ Moon Rising at Lake Superior's Agate Bay ~

Late summer images from an evening of fond memories in Two Harbors, Minnesota.

~ I hope everyone had a beautiful summer. ~

The Beauty of Lake Superior

~ Beach Swirls ~

~ Moss Scape ~

~ Gentle Evening Waves ~

~ Future Beach Rocks ~

Lake Superior holds such an amazing and beautiful variety of color and shapes in vegetation, rock, and water.

These early evening images were taken all no farther than a 25 foot radius after I gazed out at the lake to view beautiful gentle waves in teals and greens lightly capped in white. A slight turn to the right revealed swirls of dark blue and black as the water lapped onto a large shadowed shore of stone. At my feet were pebbles large and small in nearly every shape and color dappled in rainbows and slightly distorted from the water's ripples, pebbles waiting for the next Lake Superior gale to create giant waves that would carry them onto the clean washed beach. A final twist to the right found massive grey stone shelves carved and shaped by the water, wind, and ice of time, softly decorated by hardy miniature grasses and ferns, golden lichen, and gorgeous green mosses that thrive next to little reflective pools of water left by rain and waves.

The Hypnotized Gull

~ Wave Spout ~

Not even a flinch did this gull make as splashes and spouts of Lake Superior water rose above him.