Dive the Great Lakes, Save a Shipwreck

Photo: Skinned Mink

The Great Lakes enclose the little of the best-preserved shipwrecks in the world. Theyll need scuba divers assistance to stay which way.

People have been regularly astounded when you tell them which Ive left scuba diving in Lake Michigan. Its the prejudice which goes over the coast: you know the lot of scuba divers from Chicago who have never been diving in the Great Lakes because theres zero to see.

The Great Lakes have been mostly called the mutilate diving capital of the world, as well as the L.R. Doty, the 112-year-old plague found near Milwaukee last month, is the perfect example of why. In the ocean, the wooden ship similar to the Doty would have started spiritless the moment it sunk, as marine boring worms ate away during the mutilate as well as currents broke it apart. One hundred as well as twelve years later, scuba divers would have been lucky to find the waste pile.

In the cold freshwater lake similar to Lake Michigan, the ship survived over the century intact. Even the corn in the ships load hold is still there, as areits suspectedthe recorded bodies of the ships 17-person crew.

Theyre more likely to be full of corn or coal than gold, though historic Great Lakes wrecks similar to the Doty have been the tremendous informative resource. Unfortunately, theyre still targeted by thieves, similar to the ones who in 1991 nude ten deadeyes from the mutilate of the wooden schooner Wells Burt, which lies only north of Chicago in 40 feet of water.

When you visited the mutilate almost twenty years after the theft, scuba divers from the Underwater Archeological Society of Chicago had preemptively recovered lax artifacts from the Burt as well as cumulative the remaining deadeyes to the rug to forestall further robberies.

But artifacts from wrecks dont unequivocally belong in the museum, where they mostly fast degrade. If y! ou have been going to sustainably safety the Great Lakes shipwrecksor the Red Seas shipwrecks, or the Florida Keys reefs, or Galapagos wildlifewe have to safety them underwater. The only approach to do which is for scuba divers to take ownership of their local sites as well as create the enlightenment of conservation.

The simplest approach to assistance safety Great Lakes shipwrecks is to dive one. At the depth of 310 feet, the Doty is over most scuba divers range, though there have been umpteen different boats which regularly visit other, shallower wrecks in Illinois, Wisconsin, as well as Michigan. you dived with Captain Bob Schak, who runs trips to the Wells Burt, the Mackinac, as well as other wrecks from downtown Chicago.

Nonprofits similar to the UASC as well as the Great Lakes Shipwreck Research Foundation do the lot of good work documenting as well as conserving shipwrecks, as well as have been usually open to volunteers.

Community Connection

You dont have to be the diver to get into lake tourism.