Traverse City Dive Sites shore dives middle of July. ??

[Big Stig]

Hi Looking for advice on good dives from the shore in the Traverse City area.
MY son and I are PADI AOW. we will be spending a week up there in middle of July
I have a list of the wrecks from the traverse west bay site site but it is hard to know which are accessable from shore with a reasonable surface swim.
I am not a huge fan of the 15ft dives and would prefer in the 30 to 60 depth range but any call outs so I can look them up would help.

Also maybe charter names I still might be able to get on at this short notice.
We are stating in Travers City but I dont mind driving a bit if it gets us to other dives. Depth limit 90ft please

Thanks for the advice.

Cheers SteveP​

 

[shoupart]

Hi Stig,

I'm in the same boat as you- I'm going to be up there in the middle of month and want to do some local diving. Curious if any folks in Traverse City have any boats scheduled, or can tell us some info?

-Jason

Hi Looking for advice on good dives from the shore in the Traverse City area.
MY son and I are PADI AOW. we will be spending a week up there in middle of July
I have a list of the wrecks from the traverse west bay site site but it is hard to know which are accessable from shore with a reasonable surface swim.
I am not a huge fan of the 15ft dives and would prefer in the 30 to 60 depth range but any call outs so I can look them up would help.

Also maybe charter names I still might be able to get on at this short notice.
We are stating in Travers City but I dont mind driving a bit if it gets us to other dives. Depth limit 90ft please

Thanks for the advice.

Cheers SteveP​

 

[dsc2679]

To my limited knowledge, there aren't that many interesting wrecks in TC and/or E. or W. GT bays. Nor are there any scuba charters in said waters that I'm aware of. The Straits of Mackinac Preserve (about two hour drive from TC) and Alpena/Thunder Bay Preserve (about 3 hour drive from TC) have some awesome wrecks and charter boats. If you really want to see some interesting wrecks, do a day trip or two to either of these locales. Hope this helps and that you get a chance to get some diving in.

 

[Earl Grey]

Check out the link below. Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve. I haven't had a chance to visit any of the sites listed, but looking to try to check a few out when visiting family later in the year. If you visit any, let us know how it goes.Home - gtbup

 

[Wolfie]

Scuba north is the local shop that can help you with guidance. The tramp in bowers harbor is pretty cool. Ther is also a double ender in west bay that I've dive a couple of times. I don't think either is good for a shore dive. Scuba north does organize local shore dives and the schedule is on the web site. I don't know of any charters from there but perhaps you could rent a boat and do your own dives.

 

[stano]

As noted Scuba North is an excellent dive shop with good highly trained people. They recently moved to Garfield Ave so if you are looking for them keep this in mind.They know the TC area inside out.

Also as noted if there is any way you can arrange a day trip to mackinaw I would highly recommend it.

Stano

 

[Wolfie]

+1 on mackinaw. If you can. Straights diver is out of st ignace and northern mi dive center is in cheboygan. The later is kinder to walk ons. Nmdivecenter also put together for me a midweek evening dive and gathered a few local divers that work day jobs.

 

[Big Stig]

Wanted to give an update on TC dives from my vacation.
As noted above the best two resource for the area are Home - gtbup and the Scuba North dive store. The store was awesome. very freindly staff and decent prices.
I made 5 dives whilst I was there.
1) Torch Lake North end. fish cribs and wood pile. (Give this one a miss. its a real long swim form the boat dock to the area with the cribs. visibility was no where near as good as I expected from how everyon says torch lake is so clear. it is also very shallow in this area. there are some cool old pier poles that rise from about 15 feet to the surface. water temp was very warm in the low 60 at 20 feet ish. there was a thermacline at about 35-40feet and it dropped to low 50s.

2) The Elm wood wreck Shore dive from public beach. Awesome dive. real easy to find. great old wooden Fishing vessell. in 25 to 40 feet of water as it sits on a slope. it is right on the edge of the swimming area. you can see the wreck even if you are snorkling.

3) rented a Pontoon for a day with the plan of diving 3 wrecks in the west bay. The Barge, The Tramp and the Nyrod. I dove all thress sites from the gps co ordinates given but did not find any of the wrecks. I did only use my phone as the gps locator so I am not sure how accurate it was. Water temps were mid to high 50s under 35 feet Vis was about 30 -40 feet. I am going back in August to find these wrecks I am now on a mission

Bottom line I had 5 fun dives in quite warm water with reasonable visibility (this if from a newbie that has been diving quarrys in ohio, local small lakes in MI and a couple in Lake Huron So if you are from Florida or the Carribian you will probably have a different opinion than i did

I will update again later in august when I have found the wrecks
Cheers SteveP

 

[jsems00]

Haserot Beach, off of Old Mission is a nice easy shore dive. Visability is usually pretty good and an old car, motorcycle, small boats and pulled pilingpiles from old dock. Weekends you might have some heavy boat traffic, but during the week it's usually pretty quiet.

 

[Wolfie]

I haven't been to TC since 99 so things seemed to have changed. I have never seen the tramp unmarked and I have never seen the others unmarked after the cherry festival. Sorry about your difficulties. I hope at least SN let you know beforehand They were unmarked?

---------- Post Merged at 11:47 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 11:30 PM ----------

Oops, I just noticed in my dive log. 7/11/98 which would have been week 2 of cherry festival. Double ender (which I think is also known as nyrod). Diving with StanS his wife and another buddy. Says here that we put the jug on it. Sorry to have let you down. I guess it was my bad.