Port Weller: In and Out
About 30 minutes after leaving Port Colborne, I arrived in the small town of Port Weller, part of the larger St. Catharines. Port Weller is situated at the north end (the Lake Ontario end) of the Welland Canal. It’s not a crowded place boat-wise, but it was worth the stop as I wove my way back home on Saturday.
I pull into a park just south of Lock One, and across the drained Welland Canal I have this view of the drydocks at Seaway Marine and Industrial. On the left is the research vessel CCGS Amundsen in for a major refit, and on the right is the 740′ long Algowood inof r her five-year survey.
The Algowood, like a few of the ships I saw in Port Colborne less than an hour earlier, is one that I rarely see. I’m not sure why, but we just don’t run into each other all that often.
The Amundsen was formerly the icebreaker Sir John Franklin, but has been repurposed as a research vessel with icebreaking capabilities and works out of Quebec.
Then I go down below Lock One, near where the mouth of the canal meets the Lake at the Port Weller Piers. I don’t know the official name for this particular landing, but it is home to the survey vessel ASI Clipper.
Bneath her name you can make out her former name, Nadro Clipper. She was formerly a member of the Nadro Marine fleet. Nadro is a division of McKeil Marine and does various tug work from Windsor all the way down the Seaway.
ASI Clipper, a former fish tug, is so cool-looking that I can;t help taking a bunch of pictures of her when I come by!
Right behind her at the wharf is the local pilot boat Mrs. C.
Sitting at the Cooper Marine berth is the Wilson T. Cooper.
What is Wilson? Officially she is a motorized barge, and she works at Ontario Hydro in Picton, all the way across Lake Ontario.
I’m not really sure why she’s here in Port Weller, but I’m happy that she is because she’s a cool little boat.
And before I leave Port Weller, I make sure to go behind the drydock to get this stern view of the huge Algowood. Notice the welder on the stern. It’s good to see these ships being fixed up the right way.
So that was my quick in-and-out stop in Port Weller, and it’s still not yet 10:00 AM. But I’m still only 30 minutes away from Niagara Falls. I still have two ports and a lot of ships ahead of me before I get home!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Generic License.
Pingback: Boat-Hunting in Hamilton | tugboathunter
Pingback: Nearly Home | tugboathunter