The Gales Of November, Remembered

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Immortalized in a ballad by Gordon Lightfoot, the legend of the wreck lives on.

On November 10, 1975, the 725-foot-long Great Lakes freighter, the biggest freighter on the lakes when she was built in 1958, suddenly sank in a storm in Lake Superior, taking all 29 crew members with her.

The ship rests on the lake bottom 530 feet down from the surface, with the bow section upright and the stern upside down.

The Arthur M. Andersen, the ship that was last to see and communicate with the Fitzgerald, is now in long-term layup in Toledo, Ohio, and may be retired from service soon, ending a long career and an operating connection to that fateful day 50 years ago.

A documentary showing the Edmund Fitzgerald in its condition as of the last expedition in 1994 gives a lot of interesting footage of the wreck:

 

There may never be another expedition to the wreck, as it is considered a grave and requires a permit to be visited.  That permit is not being issued by the Canadian government since the 1990s expedition. The presence of at least one visible body of a crew member found during the 94 expedition is one of the factors for the denial of permits for the wreck. 

The deep and cold fresh waters of Lake Superior preserves the wreck, and as the song says, Superior does not give up her dead, even 50 years after the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Lost Whaleback Freighter Sunken In 1924 Is Finally Found

David Trotter and his dive team have found another of the great lost ships of the Great Lakes.

The S.S. Clifton sank in 1924, a 300 foot long freighter, eluded discovery until now. The last missing sunken whaleback freighter on the Great Lakes, she was finally discovered in 2016 and the discovery is now revealed.

Found 100 miles from her last known position in Lake Huron, it's another significant find and the wreck seems to be in excellent shape, complete with artifacts aplenty.

The Detroit News: Freighter missing in Lake Huron since 1924 found

The Detroit Free Press: Mystery solved: S.S. Clifton discovered in Lake Huron - The articles includes a link with photos and video (once you get past the annoying video ad) taken by the divers, who include a few of my dive buddies. It's always fun to recognize someone by their drysuit, fins and scooter when they're part of a historic discovery.

Darn nice work guys.

The Edmund Fitzgerald, 40 Years Gone.

Thanks to Gordon Lightfoot, the Edmund Fitzgerald is the most well-known Great Lakes freighter, and the most famous wreck on the lakes.

40 years ago, she sank in a gale, taking all 29 of her crew with her. The exact cause of her sinking is still not known, though a few theories provide likely answers, with either water coming in through the cargo hatches, or grounding the bottom on a shoal or a combination of the two being the most likely reason for the sinking.

The wreck lies on the bottom of Lake Superior in two main pieces,

In 500 feet of water, she's a greater than Mt. Everest level dive, and less than a handful of divers have visited the wreck using SCUBA gear. Now, with the Canadian government banning diving on the wreck, it's unlikely that more will visit the famous site.

Here's to the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew, 40 years gone.

After 102 Years, The Wreck of The Hydrus Is Found

One of the ships that went missing during the Great Storm of 1913, the freighter Hydrus had eluded discovery as to its final resting place.

Until now.

The Detroit Free Press: Man discovers Lake Huron shipwreck missing since 1913

Dave Trotter has found another one. The legendary shipwreck hunter of the Great Lakes has done it again.

I know some of the divers that found her: Keith, Fred, and Chad are all part of the Union Lake diving group and the pics they've brought back of the Hydrus are nice indeed, and the video they took of thee wreck is fantastic, as can be seen at the Free Press. At 200 foot depth, it's not a recreational dive by any means but it looks like the wreck is in great shape.

Nice find guys.

The Resting Place Of La Griffon Remains Unfound

The Great Lake's oldest shipwreck remains stubbornly undiscovered.

The Detroit Free Press: Experts: Shipwreck discovery not long-lost Griffin.

The search, and the hopes of many a diver and shipwreck hunter of finding the most elusive prize in the Great Lakes continue.

Legends Of Confederate Gold - In Lake Michigan

Rumors of gold lost in past conflicts fuels many a search for treasure, sometimes in quite unexpected places.

Two Michigan divers are diligently searching for a rumored lost railroad car full of stolen Confederate gold that allegedly sank in Lake Michigan.

The Detroit Free Press: Shipwreck discovery may lead to Great Lakes treasure

The pair began scanning Lake Michigan off the coast of Frankfort as soon as the ice melted, looking for a boxcar they claim holds more than $2 million in gold bullion.

"Forty years of waiting," said Monroe, referring to how long it's been since he first heard about the possibility of gold treasure in the lake. "I'm sure this season we'll find it."

Dykstra and Monroe believe the lost Confederate gold is somewhere at the bottom of Lake Michigan, thanks to a two-part story that has transcended generations and was last relayed to Monroe in 1972.

"I was sitting down and talking to a friend of mine, and all of the sudden he says, 'Fred, you're just the person I want to see with your diving experience,'" said Monroe. "'My grandfather told me a story that he heard from a lighthouse keeper, who originally heard it during a deathbed confession, that there's two million dollars of gold bullion inside a boxcar that fell off a ferry into Lake Michigan.'"

Two million dollars is worth searching for, but I'd say so far there is only very thin evidence as to the legendary boxcar's existence.

I wish them luck as the search goes on.

The Shipwreck Of The Griffon May Have Been Found

Yet another team of divers has laid claim to finding the Holy Grail of Great Lakes shipwrecks - The Griffon, the ship belonging to French explorer De La Salle that disappeared in 1679.

WZZZM13: Muskegon divers claim to find elusive "Le Griffon" shipwreck

Newser.com: Divers: We've Got 'Holy Grail' of Shipwrecks

This wreck was apparently found in 2011 and the divers waited until now to announce the find.

It may very well be the elusive Griffon,  as the bowsprit has an ornately carved Griffin and the ship allegedly matches the design and technologies of the period.

It will be interesting to see if it is confirmed to indeed be La Griffon.

It seems to be a different wreck from the one that Libert was exploring, so either one may be the ship or niether may be it and the ship may still waiting on the lake bottom to be discovered.

Still No Confirmation That The Elusive Griffon Shipwreck Has Been Found

The Detroit News: Explorer says Griffin shipwreck may be found in Lake Michigan

There's still no confirmation that the debris he has found in lake Michigan is La Salle's long-lost ship the Griffon or not.

The Great Lakes seems reluctant to give up the location of their longest-missing European shipwreck.

US Navy to Dive Houston

The wreck of the World War 2 heavy cruiser USS Houston that is.

Fox News: US Navy divers to visit wreck of USS Houston in Indonesia

A ship of the ABDA fleet in February 1942, she was sunk, along with HMAS Perty in the Battle of the Sunda Straight in a night action where she was outnumbered, outgunned, and outclassed at night fighting.

696 men on the Huston were killed, and 368 survived to become prisoners of the Japanese and many of them died from maltreatment at their captor's hands.

Resting at 125 feet under water, the wreck is just inside the safe diving range for recreational divers, and as such the Navy is concerned that scavengers may be pillaging the wreck. The USS Houston is a war grave and should only be visited with the utmost respect, not for the scavenging of artifacts.

The U.S. Naval History & Heritage Command's Underwater Archaeology Branch will provide a report of the survey completed by the divers.

Anniversary Of A Forgotten Tragedy: The Centennial Of The Sinking Of The Empress Of Ireland

100 years ago today, the liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the St. Lawrence river, with a loss of 1,102 of her 1,477 passengers. That's a 75% loss of passengers and crew compared to the Titanic's loss of 68%, and only two years after the Titanic.

One of the main reasons why the Empress is not as well remembered is the conflagration that swept Europe that started two short months after the sinking, and whose casualty lists made the Empress' loss an historical footnote.

Losses included the all but eight of the 167 members of the Salvation Army band from Toronto that was on board.

The Empress also sank within 14 minutes after collision in fog with the Norwegian ship SS Storstad as opposed to the two hours and forty minutes the Titanic had after the iceberg. Some blame the Storstad for the tragedy, others hold that mistakes made by both ships, along with the heavy fog, created the conditions for the disaster to occur.

The Empress sank so quickly due to longitudinal bulkheads that allowed water to fill the side of the ship, causing it to list and then for even more water to enter through the open submerged portholes. Most did not escape the ship, and those who did faced hypothermia in the frigid waters.

Lying in 130 feet of water, the wreck is accessible to divers, except for the dark, cold water and heavy currents of the S. Lawrence river that make it a very challenging dive.

Here's a video that does a good job detailing the Empress of Ireland and showing how she looks today:

A good book to read about the tragedy and subsequent rediscovery of the Empress is Kevin McMurray's Dark Descent .

A 100-year-old nautical tragedy forgotten to most.

Some Interesting Stuff Found Underwater

Seventy-one percent of the Earth is covered by water, so you can always expect to find something new, or in this case, find some things that are quite old:

In Lake Huron, an 8,000 year old caribou hunting camp, with stone walls to drive the caribou along a certain path for easier hunting has recently been found 50 feet under water. The are used to be part of a land bridge that connected Michigan and Ontario. Yes, the Great Lakes' water levels have been much lower in the past than they are now.

In San Francisco Bay, the wreck of the SS City of Chester, sunk in 1888 in a collision that took 16 lives, has been found upright in 217 feet of water. She was sunk after colliding in a fog with a Chinese vessel bringing over immigrants to the golden state.

Meanwhile, the search for La Griffon, one of the most famous and the longest missing ship in the Great Lakes continues, with a wooden beam found that may be the bowsprit of a ship, or may just be an pound net stake from an old fishing trap from the 1800s. So as of yet, there is still no definitive proof that Libert has found LaSalle's Griffin.

There's Gold In That Dar Ship

It seems the S.S. Central America, one of the richest shipwrecks in American history, still has some gold in her hull.

The Detroit Free Press: 1,000 ounces of gold recovered from 1857 shipwreck.

With gold at around $1,309 an ounce, that's $1,309,000 retrieved off the ocean bottom in just one exploratory dive, with more to follow.

Very nice indeed.

Trotter & Co Find Another One: Wreck Of The Keystone State Discovered

A Civil War-era shipwreck has just been discovered in lake Huron by prolific shipwreck finder David Trotter and his crew.

The Detroit Free Press: Great Lakes shipwreck hunter finds Keystone State, lost in Lake Huron for 152 years

The wreck, a steamer on route from Detroit to Milwaukee in the early months of the Civil War, sank in November 1861.

Now lying upright on the bottom in 175 feet of water, both sidewheels are intact and visible on the 300 foot-long ship. From the pictures and video it looks to be in great shape.

Yet another great discovery of a long-lost shipwreck in Michigan waters.

Sunday's Dive Attempt - The Centennial Dive On The Regina

100 years after she sank, an intrepid bunch of divers headed to the Regina to dive her on Sunday, the day she sank 100 years ago.

The forecast promised 20 knot winds from the west with waves up to 5-7 feet building to a gale later.
The plan was to take Dave's boat, a 37 footer powerboat out.

Unfortunately even as we planned to hit the water around 11, time kept slipping.

First, the boat wasn't fully packed with his stuff when I arrived at his place at 8 am. Mike was already there and Phil would meet us at Lexington. Then he still needed to shave, and then pack some other gear onto the boat, get the boat trailer hooked up to the truck and finally we were off at 9:20 rather than 8:30 or so.

Then once on the road, Dave realized he had forgot his SD cards for his Go Pro cameras (yes, plural) so we needed to stop at Best Buy and pick some up. We also bought some hats as it was getting cold and stopped for a quick bite on the way.

Then we finally got to Lexington, loaded Phls gear on board, changed into our drysuits and finally departed the dock at about 1:20 or so.

As we headed out we saw this laker in the distance:

The Regina was about 4 miles away from Lexington and the wind was picking up and had started to shift from the West to the West Northwest.

This meant the waves were starting to build.

By the time we reached the area where the Regina went down, we were encountering the occasional 15-foot wave, and the winds were out of the north, which was not good.

It took a considerable amount of time maneuvering to find the wreck and as the buoys had been pulled. It was not easy to spot the mooring rope floating in the water. All the while, waves are building up and we're having an interesting time trying to get to the mooring line. We're now getting pounded with pretty regular 7-10 foot waves and many 15 footers.

Here's a quick movie from one of the Go Pros he had mounted on the boat showing one of the smaller waves:

I actually had the mooring line in my hand after getting it with a boat hook, had passed it forward to Dave, who then dropped it as we got slammed by a wave. On the upside this probably was a good thing as whoever would have tried to go forward to the bow to tie it off would likely have been thrown overboard by the waves.

By now the winds were from the North and the radio was blurting out a small craft advisory and gale warning.

We were about to try to come around for another attempt to grab the mooring line when the loudest alarm in the world starts shrieking.

"Oh, not good", remarks Dave.

"What does that alarm mean?" I ask.

"It means there's water above the safe level in the bilge, we're taking it on faster than we can pump it out, and we're sinking", he says.

"Oh, not good." remarks I. "Where are the life jackets located on this boat again?"

So we inspect the bilge and yep, with all the waves there's a considerable amount of water above the line, so we decide to beat a hasty retreat for shore rather than adding a new wreck to Lake Huron's bottom. We made it back safely and then had the fun of getting the boat back on the trailer, heading home unloading the boat etc.

It was a solid attempt, hampered somewhat by poor prior preparation, but the Regina remained unvisited on her centennial.

A quick word of thanks to Tam for the linking to this story and the resultant Tamalanche!  Thank you all for visiting and I hope the rest of the blog is also of interest.

The Great Gale Of November Remembered

It was 100 years ago today that the White Hurricane struck the Great Lakes.

12 ships sunk, 250 dead and millions in damages happened over two days in 1913.

Waves 36 feet high and 80 mile per hour winds battered the lake freighters, damaging many, and sending 12 to the bottom and some have still not been located today.

It was the greatest maritime disaster in the history of the Great Lakes.

The Ships Gone Missing:

Leafield: 18 lost.

Regina: 20 lost.

Wexford: 17-24 lost, precise number unknown.

Charles Price: 28 lost.

Hydrus: 25 lost

Argus: 28 lost.

Henry B. Smith: 25 lost

James Carruthers: 22 lost.

Plymouth: 7 lost.

John A. McGean: 28 lost.

Isaac M. Scott: 28 lost.

Lightship 82: 8 lost.

100 years later, we can learn of and remember their loss.

Eternal Father, strong to save
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave.
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep
Oh hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea.

Another Deep Shipwreck Discovered In Lake Superior

Hot on the heels of discovering the resting place of the Henry B. Smith, the same team has found the location of the missing Scotiadoc.

The 424-foot long Scotiadoc sank in 1953 after a collision. Sitting in 850-870 feet of water, it is far beyond recreational divers and a very, very select few technical divers. Far safer and far more likely that people will see it via research submarine or remotely operated vehicle.

The Detroit Free Press: Another sunken freighter found in Lake Superior

Yet another very cool find.

Labor Day Weekend Adventures

Murphy's Law came to town for the Labor Day weekend and we decided to get a dive in.

I found a charter that had openings in Alpena, about four hours away from the house. The plan was to drive up Sunday late afternoon, get a hotel, be at the dock at 07:30 and then go dive the Nordmeer, a 470 foot long German Freighter that sank in 1966. I have the hotel booked, the charter booked, the tanks filled, the car loaded and ready to go.

So ML arrives at the house and then we load his gear and we drive on up to Alpena.

ML of course doesn't like the course the GPS selects so he changes it a fair bit and off we go. ML is then further peeved when I refuse to pass in no passing zones and to exceed the speed limit in excess of 20 mph over, so he takes over driving about half way, and its a bit like "Hey! Look! Squirrel!" every few minutes or so, and my car reached 100 mph on multiple occasions and for sustained periods. But we arrive safely regardless.

So we check in at the hotel and it meets ML's stringent standards, which you can read upon at his weekend adventure post.

We then go to The John Lau Saloon which was inexplicably out of burgers so we had some very good Fish n' Chips as an alternate. We also had some decent Michigan-made brews to go with it which were nice and refreshing after the long drive.

ML then fixates on a Moose Head mounted on the wall and wonders where the rest of it is.   He asks our waitress and she doesn't know either.

It will remain yet another unsolved Moosetery.

We head back to the hotel, watch Master and Commander on the TV for a good dose of both action and nautical content, and called it a night.



The waves in the movie were a portent of what we would face the next day.

We arrive at the dock located in Rockport, about 7 miles north of Alpena on time and there is no boat to be seen.

 I call up the Captain and I'm reasonably sure he forgot to call me to cancel the dive as he explains he cancelled it as the others who were booked on it were too new and inexperienced as divers to go out in the conditions that were being forecast.

I say we're here and willing to go and leave it up to him to decide if we should go. He's asking us, I basically say he's the captain and its up to him.

He then says to hang on until 8 and he'll be there.

He arrives in a quite small 18-foot boat and decides we will give it a try.

So we're in this real small boat, with a total of 4 seats, two of which face aft and off into the waves we go.

Now the waves are getting to be 6-8 footers and we're having an interesting time. ML and I are in the seat facing backwards so we get fun views of the stern rolling up and crashing down with the waves. It gets real interesting on some big waves where the sky simply and completely disappears for a moment and all we see is water.

Luckily, I'm already in my drysuit or I'd be soaked before I even get in the water.

We then reach the Nordmeer site, the wind and waves have picked up even more and it's beyond the margins of safety for diving, so no diving the Nordmeer for us. So we head towards Thunder Island where its supposed to be calmer, and it is, but not by much.

So we gear up to dive the wreck of the James Davidson. It's a freighter that sank in 1883. It's in about 35 feet of water. So we make it off the boat, swim over to the down-line, get to the bottom:

Murphy's Law near the Davidson

There's really not much to this wreck but the remains of the hull. Rather disappointing after a four hour trip and the anticipation of the Nordmeer.

Remains of the James Davidson

Before I can shoot a compass bearing back to the up-line however, ML is taking off.

He's zipping away not in a straight and level line, but moving like a diving ping-pong ball, or a hyperactive squirrel looking for nuts: to and fro, up and down, back and forth and forth and forth. So, I'm trying to shoot a compass bearing, photo the wreck, keep track of where the heck we're going, and keep him in sight and he's moving like a bat out of hell with malfunctioning sonar.

And then poof, he was gone.

Communication with your dive buddy is rather key, and my diving companion doesn't quite get it.

Lovable as he is, he's an ADHD diver.

So I start a circle search to find him and hey, there's no ML down here, anywhere.

I then do my best to backtrack to the up-line, after following him on his very random wandering this is not easy as there's a complete lack of reference points on the bottom and good luck holding a compass course. So I do my best guess and while I don't find the up-line, I surface close enough to the boat to be able to swim to it. I don't see ML in the water or on board which gets me worried. I signal the captain that I'm ok and then give the signal for "Where's the other diver?" The captain points and sure enough ML is hanging on to the ladder at the back of the boat.

I swim over to the boat and ML lets us know his head is hurting so I tell him to get back on the boat. We get him back on board, then I board and that's it for diving for the day. We then have to head to Alpena rather than back to Rockport as the waves are even worse that way.

Here's a clip from the voyage back:

That was quite mild compared to what we had going out and around Thunder Island itself, and you can see the boat's a bit small for conditions. Ah well, it was a good try.

So after getting our butts kicked by the waves, we reach Alpena, have a beer and then haul our gear into a cab for the hop back to Rockport.

We got our gear in the car, said goodbye to the captain and went on our way.

Now, as you may or may not know, ML and traffic jams really just do not mix.

Patience with traffic is not one of his virtues.  We get stuck on I-75 in a jam and then spend quite a while doing some squirrel-like navigation to avoid it on back county roads.  First west, then east, then south then east, then south then west then south again. Crazy and random navigation in action but it works.  Yes, I then acquiesce to his constant demands that I pass quite a few cars on single lane roads and speed like a demon, which was rather fun, but it would get complicated as he constantly adjusted the route as we went, with him making some very last minute turning decisions.  I even overtake a souped-up classic Ford Mustang that ML takes a few photos of and sends them to Keads as we pass.

All good though, as we arrive home safe and sound.

Then we have a nice dinner out at Taormina's Pizzeria with Proud Hillbilly's daughter and Son-in-law and their baby, and it's nice to meet them.  Then home to walk the dog, tuck the kids in a prep them for school for their first day.

Quite the adventurous weekend indeed.

Probing Begins Of Possible La Griffon Wrecksite

So Far, Libert's expedition has found timbers sticking up in Lake Michigan that may indeed prove to be the masts from the Griffin.

Whatever it may prove to be, its looking more and more like a shipwreck, but it's deeper than they anticipated.

The Detroit Free Press: Remote Michigan village abuzz over shipwreck search

Divers this weekend opened a pit at the base of a wooden beam that juts nearly 11 feet from the lake bottom, believing it could be a section of the vessel, the rest presumably entombed in mud. They picked up the pace Monday with more powerful equipment after a weekend of probing showed that whatever is buried is deeper than sonar readings indicated.

U.S. and French experts insist it is too early to say whether there’s a shipwreck — let alone the Griffin. But anticipation is building at the prospect of solving a maritime puzzle that’s more than three centuries old.

Stay tuned, as it looks like they're going to keep on digging until they can prove or disprove that this is the wreck of the Griffin.

Libert Expedition Off To Find The Griffin

Apparently the legal wrangles have been worked out or at least set aside for now and explorer Steve Libert is off to the site where he believes La Salle's famous lost ship, La Griffon / The Griffin, lies in the Great Lakes.

The Detroit News: Expedition hopes to find La Salle's long lost ship

Best of luck to Mr. Libert and crew that the expedition will be a success, and that he has indeed found the ship that has been missing for the longest period of time on the Great Lakes. If so he's on the cusp of one of the greatest maritime historical discoveries in North America.

David Trotter Finds The Wreck Of The Steamer New York

Shipwreck Hunter David Trotter does it again, and it's an important find.

The Detroit Free Press: Canton shipwreck hunter discovers another in Lake Huron

They had discovered the New York, a 133-year-old wooden steamer that sank more than a century ago during a storm on Lake Huron

.....

The find is expected to shed light on how ships were built during that era -- a time when most shipbuilders didn't use written plans

.....

Trotter said the 283-foot New York was the largest wooden steamer in existence when it was built in 1879, not long before steel and iron became preferred for ship construction.

The ship had two stacks, twin boilers, a tall mast and two lifeboats that eventually would save its captain and crew. Divers discovered it resting upright, with a damaged stern and broken stacks nearby, about 40 miles north of the tip of the Thumb.

At 240 feet deep, the New York is a serious technical dive and not a casual trip.

Another fantastic find by David Trotter.