At the wharf

On a weekend in the middle of December when the wind was particularly high, the dredge boat, tow boat and barge which had been working in the harbour at Summerside, were tied up at the wharf. They left the next week, their work completed.

It was difficult to take photos of the vessels since they were in a secure area but I took a few photos from the shore. The tow boat, Atlantic Tamarack, was small compared to the barge and the dredger.

This area is home to the marina as well, which sits between a popular tourist area known as Spinnaker’s Landing and a breakwater. 

The colourful shops of Spinnaker’s Landing are always busy in the summer. 

The marina is empty, the boats all ashore for the winter. 

However, every summer, the area is alive with marine activity when the recreational boaters tie up there. 

Ice was forming in the marina in December, though into the second week of January, the harbour has yet to freeze. 

In the harbour

The harbour at Summerside hasn’t been dredged for a number of years and the process began this past November. There isn’t much boat traffic before the harbour freezes every year, so the dredge boat was an unusual sight. The dredger worked at different locations and when my husband and I photographed it one day, it was positioned near the Indian Head Lighthouse.

We took the first photos in the harbour looking out towards the lighthouse. The sun on the structure highlighted the repair work done over this past summer. 

From the inner harbour, you could see the dredge work on the channel wasn’t far from the lighthouse. 

Zooming in on the activity off-shore in the Northumberland Strait revealed what I thought to be a tug boat with a barge.

One of my favourite images of the two has a crow or raven in the shot as well.

I learned later a barge is pushed into place by a tow boat not a tug. The bow of the tow boat is constructed to allow it to make contact with the barge to manoeuvre it. Below you can see the tow boat pushing the barge.

The barge works in tandem with the dredger. Once the barge is manoeuvred in place, the crane on the dredge boat lifts the soil into the barge. Later it is towed off shore to be dumped.

The harbour will be able to accommodate small cruise ships following this work.