On this week's episode of "Is this a shore dive?" our target was the wreck of the Burlington Bay Horse Ferry in Lake Champlain.
Although it's usually reserved as a boat dive the Horse Ferry is probably the easiest and most beginner friendly wreck that is commonly dove in Lake Champlain. The wreck sits in approximately 45-50ft of water off North Beach in Burlington, VT and is north of the Burlington breakwater.
Based on sidescan data we knew the horse ferry passed very close to the northern water intake pipe that runs approximately 1.5 miles from shore. The intake pipe served as sort of "primary guideline" to help us location the wreck.
Our total distance navigated underwater was 2.8 nm (3.2 miles roundtrip). We also visited the end of the intake pipe approximately 1500ft past the Horse Ferry wreck.
I was also testing a custom 20Ah battery for the Blacktip. I ended with approximately 51% battery capacity. I was using drysuit + doubles + AL80 stage and towing a dive flag. My buddies both had 12Ah batteries for reference. This is the longest scooter dive that I've attempted with the Blacktips. This is pretty much the limit of what I am personally comfortable doing with this scooter in open water with 12Ah batteries.
This now makes 3 wrecks (General Butler, OJ Walker and Horse Ferry) that are easily DPV-accessible from downtown Burlington.
I say “easily” with some caveats and warnings. These dives although shallow are very much a virtual overhead environment in the summer due to high boat traffic. I would only recommend doing these in the early spring or fall/winter when boat traffic is minimal. Our average depth for these dives for planning is around 40ft. You should plan to have enough gas reserves to swim back in the event of a scooter failure (a long very long swim) and/or a scooter with enough burn time to tow a buddy or a tow backup scooter.
I’m sure people reading this thread know that most “expedition grade” technical scooters like Seacraft, Suex, Bonex, etc have no issues doing dives in these ranges but you really need to plan these dives carefully on the Blacktip since the battery reserves are much smaller. I would not venture much further than this on Blacktip honestly.
Although it's usually reserved as a boat dive the Horse Ferry is probably the easiest and most beginner friendly wreck that is commonly dove in Lake Champlain. The wreck sits in approximately 45-50ft of water off North Beach in Burlington, VT and is north of the Burlington breakwater.
Based on sidescan data we knew the horse ferry passed very close to the northern water intake pipe that runs approximately 1.5 miles from shore. The intake pipe served as sort of "primary guideline" to help us location the wreck.
Our total distance navigated underwater was 2.8 nm (3.2 miles roundtrip). We also visited the end of the intake pipe approximately 1500ft past the Horse Ferry wreck.
I was also testing a custom 20Ah battery for the Blacktip. I ended with approximately 51% battery capacity. I was using drysuit + doubles + AL80 stage and towing a dive flag. My buddies both had 12Ah batteries for reference. This is the longest scooter dive that I've attempted with the Blacktips. This is pretty much the limit of what I am personally comfortable doing with this scooter in open water with 12Ah batteries.
This now makes 3 wrecks (General Butler, OJ Walker and Horse Ferry) that are easily DPV-accessible from downtown Burlington.
I say “easily” with some caveats and warnings. These dives although shallow are very much a virtual overhead environment in the summer due to high boat traffic. I would only recommend doing these in the early spring or fall/winter when boat traffic is minimal. Our average depth for these dives for planning is around 40ft. You should plan to have enough gas reserves to swim back in the event of a scooter failure (a long very long swim) and/or a scooter with enough burn time to tow a buddy or a tow backup scooter.
I’m sure people reading this thread know that most “expedition grade” technical scooters like Seacraft, Suex, Bonex, etc have no issues doing dives in these ranges but you really need to plan these dives carefully on the Blacktip since the battery reserves are much smaller. I would not venture much further than this on Blacktip honestly.
I've got a little more risk tolerance doing this in a lake at 40-50ft with no boat traffic this time of the year. Plan C or D is very much surface. There is also a beach that is much closer than the route we took to get to this wreck that we could swim if sh*t hits the fan but this time of year the parking is closed so didn't launch from there.
