In case you’re wondering what Fritz has been up to lately, Jeff Dennis shares a few shots of some June adventures. Fritz was lucky enough to be out on the kayak when the Victory II Cruise Ship sailed on by, heading into Lake Superior at the Lily Pond in Hancock. I wonder if he was dreaming of sailing on a big boat like that some day?

The next photo was on the shoreline out at Little Traverse Bay. Fritz was checking out the variety of yellow/green colors displayed in the springtime trees along the cliffs out there. Then the last shot along the shoreline of the Dennis family cottage, their game camera captured a Canada Goose family, complete with five, fluffy goslings! How cute is that?

We recently had a visitor at our bird feeders, not of the feathered variety though. He’s rather small, as far as bears go, so we’re thinking this was one of the young cubs that visited last year with his mother and is now off on his own, remembering the sunflower seed snacks he partook of last year. These shots were early in the morning and we have since taken our feeders in each evening and put them back out each morning for our feathered friends to snack. It’s fun to watch the bear, too, but we have several doe with fawns around our barns and pond, so Mr. Bear has to find a different food source away from our back yard.

Thanks to Visit Keweenaw we get a closer look at the Victory II Cruise ship that recently stopped in Houghton on their Great Lakes Cruise. Maybe Fritz was able to take a tour while it was docked there on the waterfront.

Sorry for the delay in publishing today’s Pasty Cam, we had some technical difficulties. Many folks have told us they start their day with the Pasty Cam, so we like to have it “on the air” by 7am or so, sometimes earlier.

Nice to see Fritz in all seasons, and great job by Visit Keweenaw with the Victory Cruise Liner

All of these photos are awesome. We
haven't seen any bears in our yard yet
this year, but we know they've been
here. The neighbor has seen the cubs
climbing his tree with momma yelling
at them to come down. They listen
about as well as our kids did, lol.
We saw the cruise ship docked in
Houghton. They sure are pretty.

Hi
Mary, it's a very good idea to try to discourage the
bear's visit. I've heard the grim expression "A fed
bear is a dead bear". That means eventually the bear
will get so used to looking for food around humans
that they get dangerous to the humans and have to be
killed.

Here is a video capture of some of the Victory II Shore Activity, courtesy of the MTU Lift Bridge webcam:

Greetings all:

I wouldn't get too lovey-dovey about all the passenger liners / cruise ships now sailing the Great Lakes.

Yes, they have holding tanks for the toilets, not necessarily the urinals. It is all the ship's dishwashers, showers, and washing machines that dump right back into the lake or ocean.

Seen any increase in foamy lake water, recently?

JT

DA....GREAT vid! LOLOL....

And JT...is that gross or what? Unreal. And think
of the ships world wide...no wonder the oceans are
dying too. Hooey.

The geese and those lil baby goslings are just
adorable. I like bear...that's fun Mary! But
yes...the stories I could tell....but I won't bore
everyone.

JT (and others),

Thank you for pointing this out, resulting in increasing my understanding. It would make for an interesting investigation to dig into the various Great Lakes vessels to discover which ones, if any, wait to discharge their gray water at shore-side (as they must do with black water) after moored at a destination.

Here is a link to the EPA regulations regarding the handling of gray water by vessels in U.S. waters.

I dug into it's 68 pages as much as my brain would allow. The only thing you stated that I wonder about is that urine might not be considered black water. Otherwise, it is all a bit disturbing.

I did find this short paragraph "carve out" on page 14 for the Great Lakes...

"3.3 GRAYWATER MANAGEMENT FOR COMMERCIAL VESSELS ON THE GREAT LAKES

Under CWA section 312, graywater discharges generated onboard commercial vessels operating on the Great Lakes must be treated through an MSD prior to discharge, or be held in on-board storage tanks and discharged to shore-side facilities."

An MSD is a Marine Sanitation Device. A Type II level is required for commercial vessels. Still, all it appears to do is treat for biologic pathogens, using chlorine, etc. It's not clear to me, at this point, regarding the possible chemicals (oil, detergents, etc) and heavy metals that probably would not be removed.