Gordy Schmitt and his friend had the boating trip of a lifetime after winning the raffle for a ride on the Great Lakes Fleet boat, Edgar B Speer. The following is Gary's account of the adventure.

"We went from Two Harbors, Mn to Gary, In and back. One of the neatest things I have done in my life, but would not want to do it for a career though. In the photos here, we were headed down St. Mary's River, then into the Poe Lock, where we had to cool our heals while a tour boat was in the MacArthur Lock. There was an issue with the gates, so the Speer was delayed there for about an hour. Finally the gate guard in front of us begins to raise and we're able to get on our way again.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset while passing under the Mackinac Bridge one of the evenings.

Then on our way to Two Harbors, we were approaching the Keweenaw again and my brother sent me a text with a photo of the boat coming up and he wanted me to take a photo looking back to where he was on Brockway Mountain, from the ship. Well, that was much easier said than done, I could not see where he was. I was up on the bridge using the ships binoculars, he finally told me we were past him and going away, so I told him to turn his trucks high beam headlights on and point the truck at the ship. I was finally able to pick him out. His photo from the Mountain Drive and mine from the ship with the head lights circled are attached.

The last photo is from Google Maps, which I used to mark my location while passing the Keweenaw on the first morning we sailed. Looks like we were off Eagle Harbor when I did it. According to the captain, the down bound track is 12 miles off the coast. Up bound is 5 miles off."

Wow....INCREDIBLE!! Thank you for sharing!!!

Nice tour. Thanks 4 sharing.

Great adventure and great pictures showing it. I would love to do that. I've entered several of those raffles but so far I haven't been the lucky one:) I can see the circle where your brother was watching from but it takes better eyes than mine to see the headlights shining. Thanks for sharing your great "vacation"

What a great adventure for those not
afraid to be out in the great lakes. That
wouldn't be me, but I thoroughly enjoyed
reading about it and seeing the pictures.
Thanks for sharing these.

Glad you like the photos, thank you to Mary for posting them.
I tried for 3 or 4 years buying the raffle tickets and never won, girlfriend thought she would try and she wins the first time, she is not an open water person either. I was not sure how I would do either, I've always been a person that said, if its over my head its to deep.
But I had no trouble being on the ship, its just so big, luckily we had beautiful weather for the trip.
I been posting photos on my Flickr account, not done yet though. I been trying to fill in the descriptions as I post them to its more time.
The photo looking back at Mountain Drive where I circled my brothers truck, you have to zoom in as far as possible in order to see the headlights.

Not sure if I can post a link to my Flickr account but I will try.
https://flic.kr/s/aHskFdSwAm

What a great experience Gordon. I'm so jealous.

This has always been a fantasy and goal of mine. In 1980 it sort of came true. The company I still work for had installed the elevator on the brand new Canadian Enterprise (now the Algoma Enterprise). There were elevator reliability issues (due to engine vibration) so they sent me to help fix the elevator. There was also a problem with the rudder control so an engineer from Sweden was on board to fix the steering gear.

So there we were, on a brand new Laker doing figure eights in the middle of Lake Ontario for 3 days. I would send a signal to the Captain and he would switch from full forward to full reverse. The extreme vibration in the engine room would cause your teeth to ache.

Very interesting, and I too am very jealous! I'd love to take that trip in any sea conditions! Thanks for the pictures and telling us about the journey Gordy! How Cool!!!!

D.A. good story as well!

Gordy, your friend and yourself really won the
ultimate dream! This had to been so amazing! So
happy it happened for you and thank you for
sharing your pictures! Like a Boss!