Before Engineer’s Day, all the talk of the locks was about the Viking Octantis, a newly christened this year, luxury cruise ship that had locked through, headed upbound, just the day before. The Viking website lists several itineraries for this vessel, but Marine Traffic listed this ship’s next destination as Silver Islet, a small Canadian resort island located near Isle Royal and Thunder Bay. The ship’s manifest lists space for 378 passengers, with a crew of 256. Not quite enough crew to go man-to-man, but they would make one heck of a zone defense. As cruise ships go the Octantis is on the small size. It has closer to the number of passengers of a riverboat cruise than an ocean going one. Staterooms start at $6,495 per person, with double occupancy required. So, not exactly cheap. The Octantis is part of a new line of ships for Viking branching out from their traditional ocean-going vessels and riverboat cruises, this boat is slated to be part of their expedition line of boats that will go to those part of the world that are less accessible. I guess that this includes Lake Superior. This represents a new market for Viking that will offer something different for those customers who have grown tired of cruising tropical waters and European rivers.