Here’s the HURON Lightship Site Manager, Jerry Rome.

Now to your left you’ll see a set of stairs, called a ladder, which will take you up to the Weather deck. On your right hand side, however, before going up the ladder, you will see the Engineer’s office. He slept in the Wardroom area, and had his office where he kept all the records for any work done down in the Engine Room.

Going up the steps, you’ll go up facing the steps, as well as when you come down. It’s much safer facing the steps, hanging on to the hand rails, and taking your time to do so. Towards the US flag, you’ll see the 225 ft. Buoy Tender Ice Breaker, Hollyhock, which takes care of our ice conditions out on Lake Huron, as well as maintaining the buoys. Now the water alongside the ship at our seawall is 16 ft. deep, out in the channel where the freighters travel, 60 ft. deep, and 758 ft. is the deepest out in Lake Huron. Superior, the deepest of our Great Lakes, well over 1,200 ft, Erie, the shallowest, but Lake Huron is very deep, very cold as well. Now you will see some flat spots out in the water, those are actually called Eddies. And as that water comes in out of the Lake, underneath the bridge, traveling at 6-7 miles an hour, that lake bottom and river bottom is very sandy. There’s 7 sunken boats and ships between Blue Water Bridge and our ship on the bottom. And as that water comes in, passing over that very sandy lake bottom and river bottom, it encounters those submerged obstacles, and at that point, water either has to go around it or over it. And as that happens, it starts a swirling action under the water like a tornado, creating those flat spots called an Eddy.

You’ll see two black covers up on the stack up there, those are protecting the fog horn. One of those were needed, they had two, that’s called redundancy. Just one of those horns you could hear across the water for 10 miles. So in the fog, to warn the ships that they were approaching fog, the fog horn was also used to warn those ships that this ship was anchored out there, please don’t hit it.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this brief audio recording. There is so much more for you to enjoy with a guided tour. For more information, click “PortHuronMuseums.com”

Recorded and produced by Van Rohr