For me, safety is essential and dives actually start from land. Either from my home or out on site, before I get into the water I will have a plan. This will involve thinking through what I want to explore, photograph, and film. There is always room to improvise and react to what I find down below, but having a plan sets boundaries which are then affected by depth and conditions. 

Diving Lake Michigan

Spring is often the best time of year for diving in Lake Michigan. It’s extremely cold but the water clarity is very good because the lake hasn’t had time to get clouded up by algae blooms. Sunlight penetrates further which is also helped by the fact the sun is starting to get higher up in the sky. This all leads to increased clarity and light.

Before diving Lake Michigan shipwrecks, I need to know where they are. In some cases, the coordinates are well known, and a buoy is tied to the wreck site. In other cases, I have a general idea of where a ship might be, but I have to locate it first using sonar. I then confirm its location with the ROV. (Remote Operated Vehicle) This ensures, particularly for deep shipwrecks, that I am right above them. In cases where it’s too deep to anchor or where I need to make sure I stay precisely positioned, I use an iPilot. This is a device mounted in n my bow which uses GPS data with an electric trolling motor to keep me stationed right where I want to be. 

For shallower wrecks, I can often see them from the surface. It’s not hard to get into the water and then get oriented to go exploring. Deeper wrecks, and the darker the water, this gets more challenging. If the water is deep and dark, it gets much more challenging to find your target accurately. One strategy I use is to attach a 15-pound mushroom anchor to a very long line, (greater than the water depth in which I’m exploring) and drop it down gently. Once I can feel the anchor is on the bottom, I pull it up a few feet so it hangs straight down. Now, I can follow the anchor rope all the way to the target or shipwreck with the ROV.  I also have strobe lights on the bottom area of the line to keep track of where I came down in the darkness. This is my lifeline to the surface when diving in person, and helps me avoid getting tangled with the ROV tether.

Prepping for the dive

Depending on the depth, I may use a single scuba tank filled with compressed air for shallow, non-technical dives. This setup is faster and easier to use and get into than my Megolodan Rebreather. With my rebreather, where I’m breathing mostly helium at deep depths, I can safely go much deeper and stay longer. This is a true exploration rig that requires multiple regular scuba tanks filled with a special blend of gas strapped to my sides as my “bail out” in the event my rebreather suffers a malfunction while diving. These tanks are in addition to the rebreather on my back. The entire rig is heavy and bulky and I really feel like an astronaut exploring an unseen world when I’m all strapped in.

Water pressure builds as you go deeper, and every 33 feet is another atmosphere of pressure. Regular compressed air eventually turns narcotic. Once a diver gets deep enough, they find the need to use specialized gas mixtures, which is why I have to have so many certifications to do what I do. The deeper you go, the more specialized diving becomes. 

Using my rebreather on deep dives, the descent procedure is almost like a dance. As I’m going down, I’m equalizing my ears and making sure there’s enough volume to breathe in my counterlungs. This is an important part of my rebreather, on either side of my shoulders and chest that stores an amount of gas that I will typically breathe in or out in a few breaths. It compensates for the pressure. At the same time, the deeper I go the more my dry suit is squeezing me. So now I’m adding air to the dry suit to counteract the effects of the rapidly increasing water pressure.

Then it’s back to equalizing my ears because by then I’m another 20 or 30 feet deeper. This also means I need even more air in my counterlungs because the pressure of this depth has compressed them further. So, the descent is as quick as you can safely manage all of that. 

Exploring shipwrecks of the Great Lakes

Once you get close to the bottom, you can’t be going fast and then stop on a dime. As I approach the wreck, I start adding more gas into the suit, counterlungs, and buoyancy control device (BCD). This increases buoyancy and slows the ascent. So when you touch down, you’re not actually touching down and creating a cloud of silt. The goal is to have the transition from diving to exploring be as seamless and smooth as possible and not ruin your visibility for taking photos.

On the descent down, I’m looking for that first glimpse of the wreck. Depending on the day and the clarity of the water and the light, sometimes you can see it from a hundred feet above. Usually, it’s just this dark shape. As you get closer, slowly, you can see more. It’s almost like wearing hazy glasses that slowly sharpen. Eventually, you start to see the details of the wood, the cargo hatches, the masts, and things like that. It’s all in a sort of dusky gloom; enough light to see by, but just barely. 

It never gets old. When people normally see a ship, they are usually looking up at it. Say there’s one sailing through a channel, it’s so close you have to look up at it. Or maybe, it’s farther out and you see it from the side. Well with diving, you’re flying. You can go over it, around it, and sometimes even inside of it. It’s just a different world and a completely different experience. 

The sheer size of these vessels, as you descend down on them, always surprises me. You’re just so small in comparison to these cargo ships or sailing vessels. Even after seeing so many, it’s really a surprise when you get down there and start exploring them. One of my favorite things is being face-to-face with the bow of a shipwreck. From that perspective, you get an impression of how immense the ship actually is.  

Time below is always limited by depth. The deeper you are, the less bottom time you have. For deep dives, you also have to factor in decompression stops on the way back up. When a diver breathes these compressed gases, it forces nitrogen into their tissues. If you try to release that gas too fast, by ascending too quickly, the nitrogen comes out of a diver’s blood and forms bubbles. This condition is known as “getting the bends.” It’s extremely painful, can cripple a person permanently, and can even lead to death. 

I love exploring these old shipwrecks and bringing their stories back for the world to see. It can be dangerous, but like a lot of things people do, you just have to plan and be smart. I’d encourage anyone who wants to give it a try to look up the closest dive shop and find out if anyone is offering lessons.  

If you have any questions about where or how to dive in Lake Michigan please look me up on my Facebook page Blueyes Below and send me a message. I hope you enjoyed this look behind the scenes at what it’s like to get down to a shipwreck in the Great Lakes.

Estimates of the number of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes range from 6,000 to 10,000. Lake Michigan could be home to well over 1000 of them. The first European ship to sail the lake, The Le Griffion, also became the first shipwreck in 1679. It would not be the last. 

Part of an inland sea

By the definition of “sea,” the great lakes are still only lakes. But they are huge. They hold nearly ⅕ of all the world’s unfrozen fresh water. They are deep, too, with depths beyond 1200 feet, depending on the lake. All told, they have a shoreline that spans over 10,000 miles. The size is mind-boggling. Of the five lakes, Lake Michigan is second in almost every measure of size. 

A feature of the Lakes is that they are large enough to allow storms to build massive waves. Lake Michigan is capable of creating 25-foot waves when the conditions are right. While this seems high, ships in the 18th century were built to withstand them. In fact, they often faced larger ones in the open ocean. 

What makes Great Lakes waves deadly is that they are large, but they are also “narrow.” In Lake Michigan, waves tend to be steeper and closer together than what is found in the ocean. This means that there is a lot less time and space for ships to ride the waves. This can create two serious problems. 

When ships take the waves head-on, it’s possible to have both the stern and the bow suspended on peaks. This leaves the center of the ship hanging, unsupported, over the trough. Ships are not built to withstand this sort of stress, and the keel can crack, breaking the ship in two. The other dangerous situation arises when ships can’t take the waves head-on. If they lose the ability to control the direction of the ship, they may end up sideways. As the waves begin to crash over the deck, the wind will begin to push it over.  Each wave can tip the ship farther, and with not enough time to right itself, the outcome is usually deadly. 

Early technology contributes to shipwrecks in Lake Michigan.

The earliest ships to cross the lake were wooden sailing vessels. By the 1800’s the “schooner” was the most popular type of ship. They were anywhere from 40 feet to over 200 feet long, had flat bottoms, and had two to four masts. They were ideal for entry into the shallow ports along the coastlines of the Great Lakes. The majority of shipwrecks in Lake Michigan are schooners.

There isn’t any design flaw that made these ships particularly dangerous. They were state-of-the-art designs for that time. But the wood construction made them more susceptible to damage and fire. Wood is strong, and it is buoyant but isn’t as rigid as steel. A ship, caught in a storm could lose sails, rigging and even its masts. Fires could start if a cooking stove was knocked over. At that point, it would be at the mercy of the winds and the waves with an outcome that usually wasn’t good. 

Eventually, steamships began to replace the schooners. Initially, they were of wood construction, too. But, they had an advantage. Steamers could take any direction they wished because they were steam-driven. Their movement was not determined by the wind. The ship’s boiler, which produced steam, was usually coal-fired although early steamers burnt tons of wood for fuel. As long as the fire was burning to create steam, the ship would have power.

But, the threat of fire became much more prevalent. Embers from the smokestack could land in the cargo. If this wasn’t discovered in time, the ship could catch fire and burn to the water line. Boilers, too, were new technology. They were known to explode on occasion, ripping the ship apart.  

As boilers became safer and more reliable, shipbuilders also turned to iron and steel. It was strong, rigid, and could better withstand the elements. These early metals were not entirely understood by shipbuilders of the time. Some ships cracked and split along seams when caught in rough seas. Also, propeller shafts passed through the hull. When one broke and fell to the bottom, the lake water would come pouring into the ship. 

Too much traffic

There were hundreds of ships plying the waters of the Great Lakes during the 1800s. Radar, which is common on even small pleasure craft today, wasn’t even being thought about yet. Radio, too, was brand new. Most information travelled by mail or along telegraph lines. With so many ships going to and fro, there were bound to be accidents. 

There wasn’t much ability to predict the weather. Sailors would learn to read the skies and feel the winds, but that was often a very inaccurate guess of what was to come. If rough weather was coming in, or already upon a ship, they would often try to head for shelter. On northern Lake Michigan, the east side of the Manitou Islands was a popular place to ride out storms. But, it could be dangerous to get there if the ship was already caught in bad weather. 

The waters on the open lakes were the most dangerous. Shipping lanes developed that followed the coastlines, about 10 miles offshore. Today, those lanes are split into upbound and downbound. Depending on which way the ship is headed, they are expected to be on a particular side of the shipping lane. Unfortunately, this law wasn’t put into place until the early 1900s. 

Ships would hug the shoreline and when visibility got bad, they could collide. Sailing through the pitch darkness of a stormy night increased the likelihood of a collision considerably. These incidents weren’t always head-on. At times, faster-moving ships would run over slower-moving ones in bad conditions, too. 

Captains also had a choice. They could profit and time first, and sail directly to their chosen ports. Chicago and Milwaukee were common destinations. However, if a storm or a mechanical issue were to strike mid-lake, away from the shipping lanes, saving the ship and rescuing the crew was not likely. 

It is a lot safer today

Shipwrecks are incredibly rare today. One of the last to happen in Lake Michigan was the Fransisco Morazan. She ran aground off S. Manitou Island in 1960. Once stranded, the waves have battered and broke her. Today, a lot of her superstructure is still above the water. In fact, from Sleeping Bear overlook, a person with keen eyes (and binoculars) can still see the shipwreck. 

Time and technology have moved on, and shipping has become a lot safer on Lake Michigan. Ships today are purpose-built to handle the rigors of bad weather and high seas on the Great Lakes. Radar, weather forecasting, GPS, and radio all had a profound impact on safety as well. 

There are also far fewer cargo ships and with the exception of Lake Express and S.S. Badger, no regular passenger service across the waters. This cuts down the likelihood of collisions immensely.  

Yet, the lakes are not to be underestimated and they are not tamed. Shipping companies take the threat of disaster seriously. They work hard to protect their employees and their investments. There are still plenty of shipwrecks in Lake Michigan to find, no one is looking to add any more.