A great day - and a great dive.
Topside, we saw a few clouds and some sprinkles but mostly it was sunny and about 70F, with a steady WNW breeze. Waves were 1 - 2ft with a pesky surface current but very good conditions. The milk layer ran down to the thermocline at about 45ft where temps dropped to the low 40's, visibility on the bottom was on the high side of 60ft.
The wreck continues to collapse which makes penetrating easier and more dangerous - a bad combination. As she opens up, it's easier to spot paths into the interior and the light penetrates far deeper than it ever has. At the same time, the structure is getting pretty wobbly in places and the risk of bumping something and pulling it down on top of you is going up quickly. It has been disconcerting to observe the wreck disintegrating so rapidly over the past few years and I suspect it won't be many more seasons until penetrating it more than superficially becomes a greater risk than I'm willing to endure.
Some of the folks opted for two dives, my buddy and I chose one long one so we could poke around inside at a more leisurely pace. We ended up with 129' for 59 mins and a close to perfect dive. Entering the port cargo hatch, we went past the cars into a couple of smaller rooms/areas, we also drifted into the starboard hole and further on into the next couple of rooms. From the topside, we came down through the missing deck near the bow and were able to find a path that led down a couple of decks into what appeared to have been a storage area where we found some old whiskey bottles that we left in place - though there was some discussion about the potential quality of the contents -v- the evils of souvenir collecting. We also found some items that looked like ceramic coated tin cups, except they didn't have an open end - some kind of enclosed containers that we couldn't figure out. Thinks are a lot siltier deep inside than they used to be, now that the wreck is so open but, all-in-all, a very nice dive.
It was also nice having a group of divers along that could hold their own without needing to be fussed over. There were several folks on the boat that I had never dived with before and it was nice to see everyone work together well and manage themselves in a calm, competent manner. Nice bunch of folks, too.
Ashore, a young man showed us a 14 or 15 inch lamprey that he had caught that morning. Actually, it had been attached to a salmon that he caught. I haven't seen one of those nasty buggers for years and the size of this one was an indicator that they are doing better out there than I would have hoped. Zebra mussels I can live with but lampreys serve no purpose in my universe. It was unpleasant but gratifying to watch the thing begin to bleed from it's mouth as it worked hard to attach itself to the baggie it was going to die in.
Last spring when I made my first trip of the year to the Wisconsin, I was unhappy to see how much she had fallen in since the previous fall. This was probably the last time I'll be on her this year and I'm hoping that she has a better winter.
Two weeks till we dive the Rosinco. The Rosinco sank within a year or so of the Wisconsin but is a smaller and far more elegant wreck. Partly because it sits in 190' of water, it also has been better preserved. There are a couple of seats available, if you have a trimix card and are interested, PM me.
