I went down to the bayfront Saturday to plug in the boat, do a little teak oiling and to see a Canadian icebreaker that they have been talking about on the local news all week. It's that time, shipping on the great lakes is trying to get going for the year, we have several large lake freighters that wintered here to get some work done and they want to leave. The USCG has been telling everyone that the ice on the bay is getting shaky with the warm temperatures and recent rain, the icebreaker was going to be here all weekend to break things up and create a turning basin so the big boats can leave.

Saturday morning it was upper 40's and cloudy, as promised this big icebreaker cruised into the bay and started doing their thing. I was watching from the local public dock and sure as heck, the stupid ice fishermen were out all over the bay. As the morning went on the temperatures went up and the rain started, the icebreaker continued breaking and then backing down to move the ice with its propwash. The freighters were all powering up and getting ready to move......the fishermen? Still fishing. My best guess was about 150 yards from where the Canadian boat was working and the freighters were getting ready to move through.

As I headed over to our club to work on our boat, I saw one guy unloading an ATV to head out on the ice with his fishing gear. Pretty tough to miss a big red icebreaker, not sure what he was thinking or what the icebreaker crew was thinking for that matter.........