September 2010 Newsletter

24. August 2010 by MSchirmacher.

The September newsletter has been posted to the Newsletter Archives page. You can view this issue by clicking here or visiting the archives page.

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Dive North Dakota

19. August 2010 by Michael Johnson.

 

My newest summer tee shirt sports the words Dive North Dakota below a graphic of a diver standing in a cattle water tank beneath the shade of a windmill.  When I tell people I grew up in ND, the first thing they think of is snow and cold weather.  I am pretty sure that NO ONE thinks of planning a scuba diving trip to North Dakota so when I told Kevin I wanted to do my dive master internship in ND, I think he thought I had flipped out. But, nonetheless, he made the call to in Randy Kraft, owner and operator of ScubaOne in Bismarck ND and arranged for me to work as a divemaster intern on their boat.

Almost every weekend in July and August divers travel from around North Dakota to dive near the face of the Garrison Dam.  The embankment of this earthen dam is 2 ½ miles long and 2050 ft wide at its base. The lake that was formed above the dam is 14 miles wide at its widest point, has some 1500 miles of extended shoreline and depths that reach 175 ft.  The body of water held back by the dam is named Lake Sakakawea, after the Indian princess who aided the Louis and Clark Expedition when they navigated the great Missouri River in 1805 in their quest to find a waterway route to the Pacific Ocean.  The elevation here is 1850 feet above sea level so this is considered an altitude dive.  Almost all of the diving that occurs on the lake takes place on the face of the dam in 20 to 60 feet of water.  The bottom here is boulders and slabs of granite while most of the rest of the lake has a muddy bottom.

My first dive of the summer was the second weekend in July.  The bottom temps were 65 degrees so diving with a 7MM wetsuit and hood was the most comfortable.  By the end of July bottom temps were up to 72 degrees and some hearty North Dakotans were diving in 3mm wetsuits and no hood.  Air temps were in the 80’s or 90’s everyday.

I grew up boating and fishing on this lake and ever since I can remember, the locals have told stories of the diver they knew who said “if you knew the size of the fish in this lake, you would never go swimming in it”.  Needless to say this is not a story you tell your kids who are learning to swim in the lake, but after this summer I can tell you, it is safe to go in the water.  While diving we saw an occasional cautious walleye, curious carp and numerous schools of small mouth bass that loved to follow us around like pets and stare eye to eye as we practiced hovering skills. We did not see any, but there actually are paddlefish in the lake that can grow as large as 120 lbs.  But like the whale shark, all they eat is plankton.

Every weekend our boat had open water and advanced open water students getting certified so they could dive when they went south to tropical waters in the winter for a break from North Dakota’s 30 below zero January temperatures.

Diving North Dakota has been a great experience that I intend to repeat for many summers to come.  The people are friendly, the summer weather is fantastic and the scenery is gorgeous.  With my divemaster training nearly complete and instructor training soon to start, next summer I invite you to come Dive North Dakota with Mike and extend your dive training.

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Diving in Lake Superior

18. August 2010 by MSchirmacher.

While on a family vacation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the “U.P” for those familiar with “Yoopers”, I decided to do my very first Great Lakes dive by jumping into the largest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior. Lake Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world, and it is approximately the size of South Carolina.  Although the lake is over 1,300 feet deep, the diving I was planning was in much shallower waters off the coast. The southern coast of Lake Superior consists of several underwater preserves which contain shipwrecks dating back to the late 1800’s up to 1975 when the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank off the coast of Whitefish Point, Michigan.

I was diving in the Alger Underwater Preserve, which is located on the south shore of Lake Superior near the city of Munising.  This preserve is home to several well preserved largely-intact shipwrecks due to the typically cold sheltered waters of Munising Bay. There are seven known shipwrecks in this preserve and I was able to dive on two of these during on my trip. The first one was the Manhattan, which is a wooden freighter that while carrying 76,000 bushels of wheat was driven into a reef in October 1903. The impact started a fire which spread to the rest of the ship, it broke up and sank in 30’-40’ of water. On this dive I was able to see the massive timbers that made up the hull framing, many pieces of machinery, fittings and tools that were scattered about the debris field and the huge rudder with the depth markings still visible.  As this was my first real wreck dive (besides the wonders of Pearl lake) this is what I expected from a wreck this old. I was pleasantly surprised on my next dive. Pictures of the Manhattan below are courtesy of www.on-the-edge.com.

      

The second wreck I visited was the Bermuda. The Bermuda is a 135 foot wooden schooner that sank in the spring of 1870 while carrying a load of iron ore.  This wreck sits in about 30’ of water and is fully intact. The top deck of the ship is only ten feet below the surface and there was superb visibility (30 – 40 feet) which allowed me to really appreciate the size and excellent condition of this ship. There were still pieces of iron ore on the deck and in the cargo hold which also hosts a wide array of marine life, including fresh water sponges, cray fish and the occasional rock bass, that were now making a home here. Pictures of the Bermuda below are courtesy of www.scubaq.ca. 

    

 

  

Overall I was amazed that after all of this time that neither Mother Nature nor mankind had ruined either of these wrecks. I know we are all taught to leave artifacts alone, but the urge to take a souvenir back is pretty powerful.  After all of these years I was amazed to still see everything that was still as it was over a hundred years ago.  I later learned that in the state of Michigan that if you are caught removing anything from these preserves there are severe punishments, including having your boat, car, and gear confiscated, AND up to two years in jail with severe fines.

In the end I was very impressed with the diving here and will definitely be going back again and again.   For those that heard the water is too cold in Lake Superior for diving, it was a surprising 70 degrees at depth. For anyone who would like to dive these sights I would highly recommend stopping by www.shipwrecktours.com for more information.  Captain Peter Lindquist was very educational as well as entertaining. The dive boat we were on, the Fireball, was very well maintained, extremely comfortable, and well equipped.

 

- Matt Schirmacher

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