Whitefish Point

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MikeFerrara

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Scuba Instructor
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My wife and I were invited to dive Whitefish point with some friends on their boat and finally got the chance to go this past weekend. Even with a couple of weeks notice it was still a bit of a challenge to find the time to get gas mixed and take care of all the last minute things. We finally got the store closed and hit the road about 9 pm Friday night. We took turns driving and sleeping and by the time we stopped for breakfast we arrived at the harbor just in time to launch and load the boat. Our hosts are accomplished cave and wreck divers and are partners on the boat. They have been diving these wrecks for many years and are intimately familiar with them.

Saturday the seas were unbelievably flat. When I am on the great lakes seas are usually at least 6 foot. The first dive was on the Osborn. We used V-Planner to cut tables and headed down. Visibility was great and the ship was gorgeous. Masts and anchor are still present and unlike many of the wrecks lower in the lakes it still looks like a sailing ship. We toured up the port side. The deck is at around 150. We rounded the bow and dropped down near the bottom at 165 then worked our way back up to the deck and down the starboard side to the mooring. On this wreck a pause to admire the bow and anchor (on deck) is a must. There was so much to look at outside that we chose not to penetrate. It would take many dives to see everything and I will be back. At about 17 min my wife signaled that she was getting cold so we headed up. I DID NOT want to go. We ascended according to our 20-minute schedule. We re-boarded the boat feeling energetic and eager for the next dive.

Our hosts had planned not to dive on Saturday. Their plan was to stay clean for a 250ish trimix dive on their inspiration re-breathers on Sunday. This trip was a shakedown in preperation for an Isle Royal trip their doing in August.

Our second dive was on the Vienna. We reached the deck at 120 something. The Vienna was a wooden steamer and if I remember correctly sails were added later due to her slow speed. Some of the things to view are masts, sail rigging and scattered tools. We dropped below the upper deck by the heads. We missed seeing the famous bench and vise even though we were very close. It just goes to show how much more there is to see than you can take in on one dive. If you don’t know exactly what to look for and where, you can miss things that are right in front of you. This is near the engines and below this deck we are told there is a room with racks of replacement parts. We’ll do that dive next time. Being our first time on the wreck we wanted to get a good overall view of the out side and chose not to penetrate further. We moved foreword dropping below deck to check out a couple of the holds on our way to the bow. A lifeboat sits on the starboard side. The model of the Vienna in the museum shows the lifeboat on the port side. When I asked about the discrepancy I was told that the lifeboat was found off the wreck and placed on deck. My wife signaled that she had reached her turn pressure and it was time to go. This was our second dive on the same set of doubles. Temperature at depth was 40ish with temperature at the surface in the sixties. Even though we got a little cool during the dive decompression was very comfortable. Having reached a max depth of 140 we ascended our (very reasonable) 20-minute schedule.

Sunday mourning we headed out with fresh sets of doubles and decompression bottles. The boat is equipped with surface supplied O2 so we opted to carry 50%. The setup allowed us to have both gasses and only carry one decompression bottle. For these profiles only a few extra minutes of deco would be required if one of the deco gasses were lost so we were content to carry only one. We emerged from the bay to be greeted by the kind of great lakes conditions I have come to know and love. I feel more at home with some four or five footers to beat me up before and after the dive. Our plan was to dive the Cowle first. Our hosts were to do their dive while were doing surface time and providing support. The Cowle is a steel freighter of monstrous proportions. Our plan called for a max depth of 190. After reaching the deck at about 155 we began following the super structure wreckage (at least that’s what I think it is) down. At 175 my ears rebelled and I halted our descent. I prefer to keep my ppo2 below 1.3 anyway so I was ok with this. We worked our way back up to the deck and spent some time touring the massive ship. At nineteen minutes we were engaged in a sign language debate about whether to head up on a 20-minute schedule or bump up to the 30-minute schedule and take in some more of the wreck. My wife wanted to save gas for the next dive (she dives high pressure 100’s) while I explained that I wished to stay and that I could do the second dive with someone else as I had plenty of gas in my 104’s and Florida-like cave fill. She won (go figure) and we headed up. Our decompression began with a brief stop at 110. The warmer water we encountered on the way up was a welcome relief. At 20 feet we were kept busy trying to keep the O2 regs in our mouth and dodge the huge weight at the end of the line as the whole rig danced up and down with the boat. On the way to the next site the engine began overheating ending out diving for the day. After a tour of the Shipwreck Museum we headed to Mackinac to meet our hosts for dinner and prepare for the nearly all night drive home. Now we have a difficult decision to make. Do we do our Labor Day Missouri cave trip as planned of fill the truck with trimix and head for Whitefish Point?
 
Nice job on the report Mike, makes it understandable for us shallow water divers.
 
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