Northwest Dive Club

Well last Tuesday, Scott Christopher, Dennis Mahle, Erik Foreman, and myself loaded up a 24ft enclosed trailer and Dodge Ram 2400 long bed with 16 sets of doubles, 32 deco bottles, and 32 argon tanks, 2 rebreathers and 4 bailout bottles, and headed for Lake Huron. Our destination was Presque Isle, a location loaded with old ship wrecks most of which sank in the mid 1800's. The visibilty in Lake Huron is far from the 2-8ft we are used to in Lake Washington, and most the time is 80+ft. When we arrived we loaded our gear onto the Molly V. owned and operated by Jitka of Shipwreck Explorers, and headed out to dive 6 different wrecks in 4 days. We dove the Cornelia B. Windiate, John J. Audubon, Norman, Pewabic, Florida, and the Kyle Spangler. If your interested in learning about the wrecks visit http://www.shipwreckexplorers.com, but in general most of them were wooden 3 masted sailing schooners. Each has its own interesting story which makes diving these wrecks so fascinating. We really enjoyed this trip and got to experience some amazing shipwrecks, and I would highly recommend this trip to anyone interested in wreck diving. All these wrecks were in 160ffw to 205ffw, but the Great Lakes offer many opportunities to recreational divers as well. Here are just a few of the photo's I took from our trip.

Beautiful pictures, amazing wrecks, and epic viz to dive them!

Awesome....

Nice.. Congrats on the dives..

A friend sent me a video a while ago of the Windiate -- I remember being very struck by how you could still see the grain on the deck planking. The preservation of those wrecks by the cold, airless water is amazing.

Great photos -- sounds like you guys had a fantastic trip!

Wow, nice photos.

That is a ton of gear to schlep across the country. Did they have a suitable rinse station for you guys to use?

brilliant shots! thanks for sharing!!

Damn that's alot of zebra mussels!! Looks like fun though. Did Erik cut up alot of gloves in all those shots?

terrific pics, chris! thanks for sharing them here.

Great pics! Looks like a really fun trip.

This part made me smile:

Chris Borgen wrote:16 sets of doubles, 32 deco bottles, and 32 argon tanks, 2 rebreathers and 4 bailout bottles,

We leave on the 5th for Lake Michigan and I am the only open circuit guy, imagine the shit i get for all my tanks. I will be getting fills while there though. I didn't want to bring tanks for 9 days of diving. Carl D Bradely here we come

Sweet!

Nice pics. The conditions look fantastic!

Nice shots, Chris!

WOW!! Great shots Chris. What kind of camera/housing/strobes were you using? I'm camera settings you used on that last available light shot of the full wreck at the stern. Absolutely wonderful photo.

Mark T.

Joshua Smith wrote:Great pics! Looks like a really fun trip.

This part made me smile:

Chris Borgen wrote:16 sets of doubles, 32 deco bottles, and 32 argon tanks, 2 rebreathers and 4 bailout bottles,

Scott

Thanks everyone for the kind words!!

nanmark1 wrote:WOW!! Great shots Chris. What kind of camera/housing/strobes were you using? I'm camera settings you used on that last available light shot of the full wreck at the stern. Absolutely wonderful photo.

Mark T.

Nikon D70s/Aquatica Housing/Ikelite DS50's. On the last shot I used the ambient light (no strobes), and although I don't have my camera in front of me settings were something like f4, iso 400, 1/80 or so. Glad you enjoyed the photo's!!!

-Chris

Absolutely awesome!

Hey, Chris!

What are those big heavy tank-looking things I see on Scott's back in the pics?????

- John

John Rawlings wrote:Hey, Chris!

What are those big heavy tank-looking things I see on Scott's back in the pics?????

- John

That was our attempt at mixed team diving....

I believe the first line of the SSI Open Water manual says

“Scuba diving is a gear intensive sport”

It seems they are correct.

Scott

vbcoachchris wrote:I believe the first line of the SSI Open Water manual says

“Scuba diving is a gear intensive sport”

It seems they are correct.

Scott

<grin>

You believe correctly.