Do you live close to a major body of water? Or a major river? Or plan to visit? Then this post is for you. As you probably know by now, we love to photograph lighthouses and ships. Lighthouses are usually easy, just map the directions and go. Ships are more difficult. They have this tendency to move. When we arrived in Michigan last year, we asked everyone if there was a way to know when ships would arrive in the Grand Haven harbor. No one seemed to know a good way. But now, we hit gold!
The Tall Ships are coming to Lake Michigan. These type of tall ships.
On a website we discovered their Great Lakes itinerary. They were in Toronto last weekend. Coming to Lake Michigan later in July. But we also discovered a fantastic world wide positioning site. You can zoom out to see the world, then move in to see the US.
Drill down to see just Lake Michigan. Each ship clickable. Showing the name and type of ship, a picture, where the ship departed, and destination. All in real time. Plus, the goodness continues. Search individual harbors, complete with overhead photos. Know the name of a ship and want to see where in the world it is right now? Just search.
And zooming in all the way to individual harbors. This site is marinetraffic.com
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-84.6/centery:46.2/zoom:7
This morning I noticed that the Kaye E Barker had arrived overnight… and would be leaving this morning. We hustled down to the pier as the ship was passing the lighthouse. This will be an excellent tool to use locally, and when we are traveling. We can track in real time when those tall ships pass under the Mackinac Bridge later this month and be there to watch. You will never have to gaze out to sea and wonder what ship is steaming by. Tell your friends! What a great tool.
You could also tell your friends about michigandreams.com . Every once in awhile, I post something useful.
http://michigandreams.com/2019/07/05/july-5th-fantastic-tell-your-friends/