Diver Down

Michigan's mysterious treasure ship, the Westmoreland, found after 156 years

2012-05-03T13:21:00.002-07:00

Scuba diver and shipwreck hunter Ross Richardson calls his discovery of the wreck of the Westmoreland in 2010 “providential.” How else could he describe it after about a dozen attempts had been made to find the wreck since it sunk in a terrible storm in December 1854 near the Manitou Islands, north of Traverse City in Lake Michigan?
Of course, advances in diving and sonar technology certainly give Richardson advantages over all of the expeditions before him, but ending up in the right place at the right time and dogged efforts to find the wreck certainly helped his cause.

Richardson began researching the Westmoreland in 2003. It wasn’t long after Richardson moved to the Lake Ann area in 2008 before he convinced his family that it needed a boat for “recreational purposes.” Richardson had once searched for the wreck with another expedition in 2006 and became fixated by the Westmoreland. Now he was living in the back yard of where the ship had gone down and he began diving for the wreck in 2009. Soon, his boat became a search vessel and Richardson purchased side-scan sonar equipment that cost almost as much as the boat. About a year after purchasing the boat and the sonar equipment, he discovered the wreck.
“I think the story just intrigued me: Treasure, whiskey, hardhat diving, all those cool elements were in the story,” Richardson said. “So I really started researching that, not even thinking that someday I would actually find it.”
According to accounts developed after the sinking of the Westmoreland, the ship was carrying $100,000 in gold coins (valued today at somewhere between $5 million-$25 million) and was loaded with barrels of premium quality whiskey and brandy.
Seventeen people went down with the ship, 15 when a lifeboat caught on a davit and flipped as the ship was sinking, and two more died as a lifeboat got caught in huge waves close to shore. Seventeen people survived.
I’ve also recently read in a book titled “Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era,” by John C. Mitchell, that indicates the Westmoreland was also carrying dozens of water-tight barrels of flour, which popped up to the surface during the sinking and ended up along the shoreline of Lake Michigan, helping early settlers survive the brutal oncoming winter.
In large part because of the alleged valuable cargo, expeditions to find the ship started in 1872. After the turn of the century, expeditions continued in the 1930s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and the early part of the 21^st century. Each of them came up with stories, including an 1851 penny found on the deck of some wreck in a 1936 expedition, but none came up with conclusive proof that they had found the mysterious Westmoreland.
That’s until Richardson came along in 2010.
On the morning of July 10, Richardson was beginning his third of two-mile runs, each about 100 yards apart, when he passed over what was unmistakably a shipwreck. He crossed over the area several times in an attempt to gain better sonar images and discovered what appeared to be an intact ship that looked very similar to the construction style of the Westmoreland. It was lying in about 200 feet of water in a hole between two large underwater hills near Sleeping Bear Dunes. He was by himself, but immediately called Jim Sawtelle, a previous searcher who carried out an expedition in 1957. Richardson had been in regular contact with Sawtelle in the years previous sharing information, so Ross wanted to share the discovery with him.
Now Richardson had to decide what to do next. He didn’t want to tell too many people and decided to dive the wreck by himself, a dangerous task in 200 feet of water. So, he headed out with his brother, grappled the boat and descended by himself. It would be his deepest solo dive ever. And to add to the circumstances, he decided to videotape the dive as well.
“I was never really fist-pumping. I never really got excited that way. I was more nervous, like what’s the next step,” he said. “So I decided to dive it alone.”
As the ship began to take shape beneath Richardson as he descended on his grappling line, he became the first person to lay eyes on the ship since she had sunk to the bottom of Lake Michigan 10 years before President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

As for the gold, the pilot house, where the ship’s safe was located, was blown off as the ship sunk and has presumably never been found. Richardson admits he will continue searching for the pilothouse and the gold coins.
“I haven’t gotten rich off of this. I don’t have a gold-plated car in the parking lot. I drive a Saturn,” he said.
The whiskey, which if intact could be worth millions of dollars, was unable to be seen since the hold was collapsed under the weight of decks above it. Richardson discovered an access hole into the hold but with virtually no room to move within it.
“I wouldn’t go in there. I don’t need a drink that badly,” Richardson quipped.
Richardson also said it’s very possible that the remains of the victims of the sinking are on or around the ship but that looking for them was “not his thing.”
“I’m more of a preservationist, and more into the history. I’m not a treasure hunter, it just happened that the legend is this ship was carrying gold,” Richardson said.
“But it’s a great story and a great find. I feel privileged and humbled to be able to claim that I found it and share everyone else’s stories and the legend. It’s a great local legend for the northern Michigan region,” he added. “So I’m glad that it was me that found it so I could tell the stories as opposed to a treasure hunter.”
Richardson has refused to divulge the location of the Westmoreland, but he will be publishing a book this summer about the discovery called, “The Search for the Westmoreland: Lake Michigan’s Treasure Shipwreck” published by Arbutus Press. GPS coordinates will be in the book.
Here is my interview with Ross Richardson regarding his discovery of the Westmoreland from a presentation he gave at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. The second video is a portion of Richardson’s maiden dive to the Westmoreland.
Learn more about Ross and his discoveries at his website www.michiganmysteries.com

The loss of the Fred McBrier as told by diver Tony Gramer

2012-04-25T09:48:00.002-07:00

One of my favorite parts of diving shipwrecks is the clues left behind from the ship’s final moments.
Quite often you will see the ship “as is,” meaning exactly how it was topside in the frantic minutes before succumbing. Of course, the impact of the vessel hitting bottom and the course of time will break up the ship, but many of those “as is” clues will remain.
That is what intrigued me the most while listening to diver Tony Gramer describing the loss of the steamer Fred McBrier, which sunk in just seven minutes after being struck midship by another vessel in 1890 in a thick fog.
The McBrier sits in 89 to 104 feet of water in the Straits of Mackinac, about nine miles west of the Mackinac Bridge.

The ship is upright and the rudder is hard a-starboard, and the throttle was set at a very low speed. That means the ship was moving cautiously in conditions with poor visibility when it tried at the last minute to swerve out of the way of the oncoming ship. That moment in time is forever preserved at the bottom of Lake Michigan, where both the rudder and the throttle remain in those same positions.
That night in October 1890, the Fred McBrier was loaded with iron ore, towing two schooner barges. She, along with the larger propeller, the Progress, had exchanged fog horn signals, but the signals were misinterpreted. Moments later, the much larger Progress emerged from the thick soup and plowed into the Fred McBrier enbedding itself about midship portside. At that time, the Progress was stuck into the McBrier and stayed there until all of the crew got off safely. When the Progress pulled back and away from the McBrier, the latter sunk in three minutes.
Gramer first dove the wreck in 1979. At that time, visibility was so poor, he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. He dove it again in 1986 – same thing. Then, he dove it again in 2011 and, thanks to zebra mussels, the visibility was 50-60 feet.
Here is my interview with Tony Gramer regarding the Fred McBrier at The Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle.

Dossin Maritime Symposium today at Belle Isle

2012-04-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

I went to the Dossin Maritime Symposium today at Belle Isle. I had a great time and will be bringing you stories and video from that event next week.

Great Lakes history is revealed in its ancient shorelines, reefs and lake levels

2012-04-11T13:12:00.002-07:00

The state of Michigan has a rich geological history.
And the evidence of that history is still all around us. In many cases, all we need to do is look below our feet.
Or, in many cases, in the water below our feet.
Luke Clyburn, a United States Merchant Marine Captain operating the research/training vessel, the Pride of Michigan, admits he sailed the Great Lakes for years without giving second thought to what might lie below. Now, as president of the Noble Odyssey Foundation, which brings scientists and young people together to document underwater research projects, he leads efforts to document understanding of Great Lakes science and history.
“The Great Lakes cover up the history for this part of the world,” Clyburn said. “It’s underneath our shorelines that we’ll find out what happened 7,000 years ago.
“For years, I travelled the Great Lakes without giving thought to the fact that the lake levels could have been different. Once I realized that the changes were there, I really started looking and realized that there is so much that is yet to be discovered.”

At one time, before glaciers moved into the area and melted, the lakes were much, much shallower. As a result, those ancient shorelines are now several miles out into the lake. That results in the strange phenomena of seeing tree stumps sitting deep on the bottom of the lake. Many of those stumps are nearly 8,000 years old, leftovers from a region that looked nothing like it does today.
“A lot of people swim right over a tree stump and it never means a thing to them,” Clyburn added. “Until all a sudden there is a purpose for the tree stump being there, and they say, ‘Wow, this is pretty neat.’ ”
I have an interest in another part of the Great Lakes ancient history – its ancient reefs. Long before any animals even walked on land, what is now Michigan was covered by a shallow saltwater sea. Close to my parent’s retirement home in the south-central part of the Upper Peninsula, I have discovered hundreds of fossilized corals imbedded in the limestone shores of Lake Michigan. Nowadays, whenever I visit my parents, I head to that same shoreline looking for and photographing those coral fossils. But for years, just like Clyburn and his maritime travels, I walked over these fossils without even giving a second thought.
Here is my interview with Clyburn regarding Michigan’s ancient shorelines.

Adaptive scuba and kayaking returns to Eastern Michigan University

2012-04-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

Adaptive water sports instruction (scuba and kayaking) return to the greater Detroit area on Sunday, April 15 at the Michael Jones pool facility of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. The event will be held from 10 am to 3 pm and invites anyone with a physical challenge to come and try. First Dive (scuba) and First Paddle (kayaking) are programs of the Orthotic & Prosthetic Activities Foundation and offer an introduction to the world of adaptive recreation across the country with First Clinics. Local hosts for this First Dive and First Paddle Clinic are Becker Orthopedic of Troy, Ropp Orthopedic Clinic in Commerce Township and SOAR – Special Opportunities for Advanced Rehabilitation, a non for profit support group in the greater Detroit area. There is NO CHARGE for First Dive or First Paddle, but participants need to register. For more information and to register, please contact Emily Irvine at 248-766-8150 or eirvine@emich.edu or Joe Cloutier at Huron Scuba at 734-994-3483.

Artist's rendering of the attempt to find survivors of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

2012-04-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

This week, I received an email from Doris Sampson, an artist/photographer from Duluth, Minn., who read my stories about Capt. Donald Erickson and his subsequent passing. As you may recall, Capt. Erickson and his crew of the William Clay Ford were the first responders to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Sampson told me she believes she is the only person to accurately paint the search for the Fitzgerald, which was conducted by the William Clay Ford and the Arthur Anderson.
Here is a portion of the story Sampson told me.
After interviewing Capt. Erickson at the Dossin Marine Museum, (in Detroit) in the William Clay Ford pilot house, on March 15, 1999, in September she proceeded to do the painting based on Don's personal description of the night.

Doris Sampson's artwork.

She then met with Don in Toledo on the way to Dayton, Ohio, in April, 2000, to have the painting printed into a limited edition; and he confirmed that everything in the painting was accurate.
On the return trip, she met with him again on April 10 at the Old Mariners' Church in Detroit, where they both signed the Artist Proof Series of the edition.
“He will be sorely missed because of what a wonderful person he was, and because of his willing contributions to Great Lakes freighter history in the sharing of his story to many, including myself,” Sampson said.
On this page your will see a couple of Doris Sampson’s photographs of the painting and of Capt. Erickson signing the painting.

Capt. Donald Erickson and Doris Sampson signing the Artist Proof Series of the illustration.

Doris Sampson’s other work can be viewed at dorissampson-lenscanvas.smugmug.com

Researchers try to save the lake sturgeon from extinction

2012-03-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

The lake sturgeon has been around since the age of the dinosaurs. They did the one thing dinosaurs couldn’t do: They adapted, and they survived.
But, leave it to mankind push one of nature’s oldest creatures to the verge of extinction.
Count Kathy Johnson among those who are trying to bring the lake sturgeon back from near extinction through research and education of the public.
For more than 30 years, Kathy Johnson, along with her partner, Greg Lashbrook, have worked with scuba certification classes, on search & rescue operations, for commercial hardhat companies and assisted researchers across the Great Lakes basin. Their work with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Departments of Natural Resources and Fishes & Oceans Canada, among other organizations, has established them as Great Lakes marine life experts.
For the last several years, the pair has focused much of its efforts on saving the lake sturgeon, which is currently classified as an endangered species. Their efforts began after they received a call from the Department of Natural Resources fisheries office in Harrison Township, MI., to ask if they would like to be involved in the project. The DNR had located where the lake sturgeon were spawning, but they needed someone, i.e. scuba divers, to get into the water and find fertilized eggs.
“We didn’t even know what a sturgeon egg looked like,” Johnson said. “So we said, ‘Great, we’re willing, but what are we looking for?’ ”
That initial study was followed by a grant, which allowed researchers to mount a camera in the water for a month to document spawning activity.

What is now known is that the Algonac area of the St. Clair River has the largest area of free range sturgeon population in the Great Lakes basin. Other areas, such as Black Lake, located in the northeast portion of the Lower Peninsula, are land locked and the sturgeon there are unable to move freely through the basin.
Sturgeons are most vulnerable in the spring when they spawn in shallow rivers and tributaries and can literally be hand-plucked out of the water and stripped of their caviar. The young sturgeon are then subject to predators for about six months, or the fall season, when they swim away from their nesting grounds. Adult sturgeon can grow to 6-8 feet long, weigh 200 pounds and live for 100 years. After travelling for thousands of miles, they return to the exact location they were born every 3-4 years to spawn.
Lake sturgeon are also a valuable barometer on the health of a watershed because they are what is called a “keystone” species. They are given that title because they are the largest animal in the water column yet they are bottom feeders and feed on the smallest organisms in the water column. Thus, the existence of a healthy keystone species like the lake sturgeon in a particular watershed means the entire watershed is healthy.
Johnson said scuba divers can assist in the recovery of the lake sturgeon by working with researchers who need volunteers trained to dive. Divers and other volunteers can also protect the riverbanks during spawning season to prevent poaching.
In 2011, Kathy and Greg released a new full length documentary titled “Manistee Nmé, a Lake Sturgeon Success Story,” about the relationship between the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians in Manistee, MI and the lake sturgeon. The DVD explores not only the spiritual bond between the people and the sturgeon, but also how researchers were able study the lake sturgeon in the area while also being sensitive to the needs of the Indian tribe.
The video is available, for free, by going to www.lrboi-nsn.gov/nrd or www.GregoryAD.com In addition, here is the website for the St. Clair-Detroit River chapter of Sturgeon for Tomorrow: www.stclairsturgeon.org/page-index.html
Here is my video interview with Kathy Johnson on efforts to saving the lake sturgeon and how divers can help in the effort.

Shipwreck hunter discusses wrecks he found in 2011, and how technology may close the book on wreck hunting in the Great Lakes

2012-03-24T18:23:00.001-07:00

Ross Richardson has spent the last decade searching for and documenting shipwrecks off the coast of west Michigan.His hobby has been made much easier with recent advancements in side-scan sonar technology.
But that technology, Richardson fears, may, 10 years from now, render his hobby obsolete.
The Lake Ann resident discovered three still unidentified wrecks off Sleeping Bear Point, near the Sleeping Bear Dunes in 2011. They were all discovered about one-half mile from each other in 12-20 feet of water fairly close to the shoreline. He believes the wrecks were recently uncovered due to shifting sands in the area that were uncovered during a storm, and he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Sleeping Bear Point is subject to numerous landslides, which probably helped bury the wrecks for years. He believes they all wrecked in the area sometime in the 1850s to the 1890s.

Richardson has not found any cargo at any of the sites, but because the wrecks are in such shallow water, salvagers probably recovered the cargo a long time ago.
Unfortunately, for Richardson and others like him, shipwreck hunting in the Great Lakes may be an era that is coming to an end. According to Ross, the new sonar technology will make it possible to discover all remaining shipwrecks on the bottom of the lakes within the next 10-15 years. He believes there are still “a couple hundred shipwrecks" in deep water intact that are still not found.
“In another 10-15 years, there’s going to be no other shipwrecks to go out there and look for. They’re all going to be discovered,” he said.
Here is my video interview with Ross Richardson regarding his discoveries and the end of an era in shipwreck hunting.

Dive shops, dive charters talk about scuba diving in the Great Lakes basin

2012-03-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

In addition to the very interesting seminars and speakers, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival is at its core a haven for scuba divers to visit the many booths on display that are manned by scuba diving shops and dive charters from across the state.

In this video clip, I spoke with Michael Lynch, of Bruno’s Dive Shop in Clinton Township, MI and michigandiver.com; Gary Venet, owner of Rec & Tec Dive Charters out of Port Sanilac; and Femia Alberts of Sea-Side in St. Clair Shores about the value of the festival, wreck diving in Lake Huron and some of the fun that comes with river diving in southeastern Michigan.

Capt. Donald Erickson remembers the night his crew tried to find survivors from the Edmund Fitzgerald

2012-03-14T11:09:00.003-07:00

(Note: Capt. Erickson passed away March 26. He was 84. It's probably fair to say I was the last person to interview him when we met on Feb. 25, 2012. It was my honor to do so. May he rest in peace. Funeral arrangements were handled by Howe-Peterson Funeral Home in Taylor, Mich. His remains were cremated and as of March 28, there was no funeral service information.)

The night of November 10, 1975, was a night like no other.

If that date doesn’t ring any bells, perhaps referencing Gordon Lightfoot’s greatest hits will do the trick.

That was the night that the Edmund Fitzgerald, the largest ship to ever ply the Great Lakes at the time, went down in a ferocious storm north of Whitefish Bay in Lake Superior.

It is well known that when she went down, she it took all 29 souls aboard with her.

What isn’t as well known is the story of the brave sailors who risked their lives to try to find survivors of the Fitz. After the Coast Guard radioed that contact had been lost with the Fitz and she had gone down, a frantic call was sent out to nearby ships to assist in recovery of anyone who had survived the sinking.

Capt. Don Erickson, who helmed the SS William Clay Ford, was docked at Whitefish Point when the call came in. He and his crew agreed to head out into dangerous waters along with the Arthur M. Anderson to look for survivors. When they arrived at the spot that the Fitzgerald went down, about three hours after contact was lost, all the William Clay Ford saw was two ducks, according to Erickson.

While their search came up empty, the captain and crew of the SS William Clay Ford was presented with many awards for their bravery, including a plaque bestowed upon them by the Great Lakes Maritime Insitute. It reads “On the night of November 10–11, 1975, these men voluntarily left a safe harbor to face the dangers of gale force winds and vicious seas, in the blackness of a storm which had already claimed as a victim the steamer Edmund Fitzgerald, to search for possible survivors of that disaster, exemplifying the finest traditions of the maritime profession."

I had always believed that the Fitz went down because it ended up sitting on two rogue waves at the stem and the stern that lifted the center section off the water. With nothing to support the center, it broke it two. Erickson is convinced the Fitz struck a shoal near Caribou Island which produced a hole in the hull that ultimately led to the sinking.

Here is my interview with Capt. Erickson and his memories from that harrowing night.

Scientists study caribou hunters beneath Lake Huron along the prehistoric Alpena-Amberly land bridge

2012-03-08T09:37:00.000-08:00

Nine thousand years ago, travelers heading from Michigan to Canada didn’t have the luxury of the Ambassador Bridge or the Blue Water Bridge or the Windsor Tunnel to get them there.

But those travelers didn’t need those man-made passages either, since there was once a land bridge from what is now Alpena to what is now Ontario.

That’s right. Just after the end of the Ice Age, whose glaciers helped form Michigan’s Great Lakes, a land bridge, called the Alpena- Amberley ridge, was a 72-square mile stretch of land connecting the northestern Lower Peninsula with southwest Ontario. On older nautical charts, the area is labeled as the Six Fathom Shoal, and it once divided the Lake Huron basin into two distinct lakes. The prehistoric Lake Stanley is the forerunner to Lake Huron, while Lake Chippewa is the forerunner to Lake Michigan. Prior to the ice melt, those two lakes did not connect at the Straits of Mackinac like they do today.

The Alpena-Amberly Ridge was a rocky land-bridge subject to bitterly cold weather that served as a migration path for both mastadon and caribou.

All of the conditions would have been right for a caribou hunt along the ridge. Early hunters are known to have hunted caribou in present day Michigan during that time. The region was prime caribou habitat with its open tundra and few trees. And those hunters would have pursued the caribou not only as a food source, but also to use their thick hides as insulation against the harsh cold. Sharing the same land bridge doesn't necessarily mean the caribou became prey for early hunters, but scientists are beginning to uncover clues that could reveal evidence of hunting blinds, caches or pits, and “drive lanes” that would bring the animals close enough that the hunters could attack with them spears.

Since the summer of 2009, Dr. John O'Shea, curator of Great Lakes Archaeology in the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, has led a study of the area. His biggest problems? The ridge is now at the bottom of Lake Huron, about 100 feet below the surface and secondly, any potential artifacts are covered with zebra mussels. The good news is that the area remains virtually the way it was. If such an area was on land, it most certainly would have been altered by farmers and ultimately that type of modern development we have today.

Here is my fasinating interview from the Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival with Dr. O’Shea regarding his research on the Alpena-Amberly land ridge.

Detroit Police Department dive team member describes how he found a Revolutionary War-era cannon in the Detroit River last summer

2012-03-02T07:40:00.000-08:00

I didn’t ask Detroit Police Sgt. Dean Rademaker if he is a gambler. But with his luck, he might consider dropping down a few bills in Las Vegas.

Last July, Rademaker, part of the police department’s scuba diving team, found a Revolutionary War-era cannon on the bottom of the Detroit River. It was a training dive to get new divers familiar with the river’s fast currents.

Rademaker, who already was part of the dive team that found another cannon in 1994, wasn’t in the water for long before he discovered another amazing part of our region’s history.

The cannon was found in about 6 inches of silt. It is 5.5 feet long and weighs 1,288 pounds.

Detroit Historical Society curator discusses Revolutionary War-era cannon pulled from the Detroit River in 2011

2012-02-28T13:08:00.000-08:00

Here is an interview I did with Joel Stone, curator of the Detroit Historical Society at the 31^st Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival regarding discovery of a pre-Revolutionary War cannon found in the Detroit River last summer.

Members of the Detroit Police Department dive team discovered the cannon about 200 feet from Cobo Center in downtown Detroit during a training session in July. It’s the fifth cannon found in the area in three decades. After a couple of failed attempts, the cannon was finally brought to the surface on Oct. 5 by the Detroit Police Underwater Recovery Team.

Stone said the cannon is 5.5 feet in length, with a 3.38-inch bore, molded of solid iron and weighs 1,288 pounds. It carries the crest of King George III.

The cannon is believed to have landed in the river in 1796, but how it got there remains a mystery. It is Stone’s opinion that the cannon was dumped there, since it had outlived its usefulness. He believes the cannon was “blown out,” and since it couldn’t be reforged, it no longer had value. And dumping it in the river would keep it out of the hands of the Americans.

My next video will feature Sgt. Dean Rademaker, the officer who discovered the cannon.

Shipwreck Festival was a great experience

2012-02-27T08:43:00.000-08:00

I had a GREAT time at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival on Saturday. It was enjoyable from both a personal and professional standpoint. I met some great people and it was an educational experience as well.
I will be producing several video clips of people that I interviewed at the festival. Look for the first clip on Wednesday. Some of the topics will include: A cannon found in the Detroit River; newly discovered shipwrecks off Sleeping Bear Point; Sharks of the Great Lakes; Caribou Hunters beneath Lake Huron; a chat with the captain of the William Clay Ford, the first responder to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald; a retired teaching couple who have turned into video producers and produced a piece on a Tuskegee airman who crashed into the St. Clair River; the ancient shores of the Great Lakes and more. So stay tuned.

31th annual Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival set for Saturday, Feb. 25

2012-02-23T14:35:00.000-08:00

The 31th annual Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival will take place this weekend, Feb. 25 at Washtenaw Community College.
I will be at the festival, enjoying some of the presentations and hopefully, if all goes to plan, feature several video interviews on this blog starting next Wednesday, Feb. 29.
Here is some information about the festival, courtesy of the festival website.

The Ford Seahorse Scuba Diving Club, in conjunction with the Detroit Historical Society’s Dossin Maritime Group and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum will present the 31st Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival at Washtenaw Community College’s Morris Lawrence Building, 4800 E. Huron River Drive, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The programs run from 9am–5pm, featuring a wide variety of sessions on Great Lakes shipwrecks, exotic dive locations from around the world and education/technical sessions. In the Exhibit area, there will be book signings, exhibits from local maritime artists, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, dive equipment manufacturers, diver charter operations and dive travel agencies. A number of local dive shops will be represented as well as underwater marine sanctuaries, and local quarries.
Shipwrecks are always the theme of this event and this year is no exception. The Festival has three venues, including presentations on Great Lakes shipwrecks, exotic saltwater destinations and Educational/Technical topics.

Divers go to extremes in search of lobster sold to Americans

2012-01-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

A terrible, tragic, heartbreaking story, courtesy of MSNBC. Seems like this could all be avoided with a little regulation, some training and better equipment.

By Catherine Olian, Jessica Hopper, Michelle Balani and Alissa Figueroa
Rock Center

UPDATED: Off the coast of Honduras, divers are dying in search of what they call "red gold." The treasure they're hunting is the lobster that ends up on many American dinner plates.
"Americans should know that every time they eat the lobster, there is a history behind that lobster," said Dr. Elmer Mejia, who has devoted his life to helping the lobster divers.
Mejia has been treating lobster divers for nearly three years at his clinic in La Ceiba, Honduras. The doctor has the only hyperbaric chamber to treat the men who come to him when they are suffering from decompression sickness, commonly called "the bends."
Thousands of men have become permanently disabled working in the unsafe and poorly regulated lobster industry in Honduras. They spend weeks at a time at sea, making as many as 16 dives a day down to depths of 120 feet. Their air tanks often don’t even have pressure gauges to warn them when their supply is running low, so the divers bolt to the surface when they suddenly have trouble breathing. The dangerous combination of staying down too long and coming up too quickly can result in serious decompression sickness and in some cases, paralysis.
"It's incredibly dangerous what they are doing. They are diving so far beyond anything that we would consider to be within acceptable limits," said Eric Douglas, who writes about diving safety and has studied the Miskito divers along with Dr. Mejia. "They have none of the basic things that divers today would consider mandatory equipment- pressure gauges, alternate air sources, even a buoyancy control vest to help them float underwater without effort."

Sometimes the men ignore their difficulty breathing in an attempt to catch one more lobster.
"They get paid by the pound, so the more lobsters they can get on every one of those dives, the more money they make. So they're going to push it for every last breath in the tank," said Douglas.
About 90 percent of their catch ends up in the United States, according to the Honduran government.
Dr Mejia works around the clock at his small clinic treating as many divers as he can. He has very little money, but he doesn’t turn any injured diver away, and what he sees is heartbreaking.
"It's very difficult when you see very young people paralyzed from the neck down below and you know that they will not improve," said Dr. Mejia.
Mejia often travels to the Miskito Coast, a remote area about 200 miles from his clinic where most of his patients live. People there have no electricity or running water. There are few other job opportunities and most families have at least one male relative who became disabled diving for lobsters to be exported to the United States.
In a dilapidated one-room house, Wilmur Mauricio Sambola lay dying. He was paralyzed from the chest down while diving for lobster and he was suffering from a severe infection caused by his illness. Mejia had treated Sambola 10 months earlier and knew that his injuries were severe, but he was still shocked to see how rapidly he had deteriorated.
"He was a very strong man, I'm really surprised at his condition at this moment," said Mejia as he leaned over the ailing man.
During his visit, there was little Mejia could do to treat the 31-year-old man except to provide him with pain medication.
Some 4,500 divers throughout the Miskito Coast have suffered from dive-related injuries like Sambola. Those lucky enough to be healed often return to diving.
"We feel very pleased when they improve very quickly at the chamber, but sometimes we are kind of scared because if they improve so quick, so fast, they will think the hyperbaric chamber makes miracles," said Mejia. "So they will go back again diving and the next time can be the last time."
They take the risk for a few hundred dollars for each two week diving trip. Only the tails of the lobsters they catch are sent to America, and there’s no way the U.S. government, or the consumer, can tell if a lobster tail was caught by a lobster diver.
"Whether they are dive caught or trap caught lobsters, you can't tell, all that we're looking at is the tail," said Agent Paul Raymond of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There are no laws in the U.S. blocking the import of lobster caught by deep sea divers like the Miskito men.
The Honduran government and regional fishing organizations want to ban lobster diving in 2013, but the divers say they can’t stop because they have no other way to feed their families.
"If we do not provide the job alternatives, stopping the diving will be like killing them," says Dr. Mejia.
There is some hope. USAID just announced that the World Bank is putting together a package of grants and loans for the lobster divers totaling about $775,000. The money is meant to help the Miskito divers develop other ways to make a living, including possibly starting a small artisanal diving industry to catch fish that live in shallow waters, where it’s safe to dive.

After you've read this story, check out the broadcast link at: http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/30/9810527-divers-go-to-extremes-in-search-of-lobster-sold-to-americans

Learning how to develop an anxiety-free scuba diving descent

2012-01-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

I don’t know about you, but I always seem to stress over the little things.

Call me anal (that’s all right, I’d heard it before), but it seems like I can hit the home run, but sometimes I have trouble getting to the plate, metaphorically speaking.

I can snowboard all day and never fall – and then I’ll take a spill off the chairlift.

I play hockey, and I can score from anywhere. But I can’t, for the life of me, score on a breakaway.

Get me to the golf course, and I can put up a decent score. But I NEVER hit it well of the first tee.

I chalk all of it up to thinking too much. Or, perhaps more accurately, having too much time to think.

Up until recently in my scuba diving development, my biggest problem was the descent. Get me past the first 15 feet, and I’m a fish – good buoyancy control, good trim, good air usage, etc.

The problem was that I had a heck of a time descending. And when I would be on a dive boat with a handful of other divers, I would become nervous that I couldn’t descend, and that I would slow down the entire group. That was my dirty little secret that I would keep quiet about during the pre-dive chatter. So the problem would perpetuate upon itself.

I remember the dive leader once pulling me by my foot to get beyond that first 15 feet, or deciding to “duck dive” to force myself to descend. That’s a stupid method that can be dangerous.

I tried all sorts of other solutions – not eating too much before diving, eating before diving, trying to calm my nerves, and ultimately, overweighting myself.

For a time, I was convinced it was my equipment. I was venting the air from my BC (buoyancy compensator) correctly, but something in the BC was malfunctioning and wasn’t venting. That was the cause of my problems, I thought. I remember feeling puzzled and embarassed when an overweight man would be using less weight than me to decend.

“I’m in good shape,” I thought to myself. “How is that fat guy using 10 pounds less weight than me to descend?”

When I would dive in the Great Lakes with a 7-millimeter wetsuit, I would don so much weight; I’d feel like I was pulling a Mack truck back onto the dive boat after a dive.

Not good for the knees or the back, and certainly not good for my scuba diving development.

Finally, I just started forcing myself to relax, and I starting thinking about the anatomy of the descent.

Was I being completely still when I began my descent?

As it turns out, no, I wasn’t. I noticed I still would be finning, or sculling, as I was purging air from the BC. Probably a nervous tick developed early during the problem. Just a little kicking, which creates upward momentum can prevent the descent.

Was I venting my lungs while I was venting the BC?

No. Again, the anxiety was building as the group was preparing to descend or was already descending. A full set of lungs can easily prevent a diver from descending. I was probably taking one last breath above the water level at the same time I was purging the BC. It is a natural instinct to either hold one’s breath when water contacts the face and/or take a deep breath from the regulator. So that part of the decent goes against what actually feels natural.

Soon, I was descending much easier. And with success in the descent, the anxiety level started to fall and my confidence in overcoming the problem began to grow. And success began to perpetuate onto itself.

The end result is that I have been able to drop 10-12 pounds of weight from my cold water dives and about 5-8 pounds from my warm water dives.

It is still a work in progress, and I am still probably a little overweighted. But I am fine with that, since I am overcoming my problem and making it easier to maintain my position during the safety stop at the conclusion of my dive.

Look for the accompanying piece about stress-free descents in this blog, courtesy of Dive Training magazine.

Keys to a stress-free descent in scuba diving

2012-01-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Dive Training magazine

The key to a stress-free descent that sets the stage for a safe, enjoyable dive is to relax – admittedly not always the easiest accomplishment when there are so many anxiety-producing details to think about. To help control the anxiety, begin preparations for entering the water and descending well in advance.

Take your time doing a predive equipment inspection, setting up your scuba unit and gearing up. Complete a thorough buddy check before entering. If diving from a boat, follow the instructions of the crew. Only then can you enter the water with confidence in your buddy team’s equipment and knowledge of correct procedure.

Once on the surface, make sure you are sufficiently positively buoyant to float comfortably but not bob like a cork. Check your gear again to make sure everything is fastened where it should be. If uncertain about the right amount of weight, now is the time to do a weighting test.

While you’re waiting for your buddy to enter or if you feel the anxiety building, rest for a few moments on the surface with your face in the water. This quells the instinct to hold your breath and eases the transition to the underwater enviroment. …

Many divers have trouble getting below the surface because they either fail to vent air from the BC adequately or unconsciously scull with their legs, creating upward momentum. Assuming you are properly weighted, your body is still and you’ve exhaled well, you should slowly sink, staying in synch with your buddy’s descent.

As you slip below the surface, concentrate on breathing continuously with normal inhalations and long, slow exhalations. Just below the surface, gently equalize the ears to loosen the eustachian tubes, then equalize often – every few foot or so for the first few body lengths. Remember to raise your chin to open the eustachian tubes; also stretch your neck to the side if necessary.

Aircraft wreck found off Florida's Atlantic coast

2012-01-10T12:09:00.000-08:00

JUPITER, Fla. (AP) — A scuba diver in Florida says he's found the remains of a WWII-era aircraft on the ocean floor.
Randy Jordan of Emerald Charters tells The Palm Beach Post (http://bit.ly/s1iacg ) that he was diving at a depth of around 200 feet four miles off Jupiter last week when he spotted the remains of an aircraft. The plane was upside down but still mostly intact.
Jordan says he believes the plane is a Curtiss Helldiver SB2C.
If he's right, it would be the second Helldiver wreck found underwater in two years. One of the planes was found off Hawaii in January 2010.
Jordan says he has plans to take more divers to the site, but they have to proceed cautiously because the plane still could contain live ammunition or human remains.

Judge cautions lawyers in honeymoon death trial

2012-01-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

By BOB JOHNSON
The Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A Jefferson County judge has instructed state prosecutors and attorneys for a Jefferson County man charged with killing his wife during a honeymoon trip to Australia to get along and act like adults as they prepare for trial Feb. 13.

Circuit Judge Tommy Nail made the comments during a hearing last week in Birmingham. Nail said he had received letters from attorneys on each side complaining about lawyers on the other side.
Nail also upheld an earlier ruling that jurors won't see a video of Gabe Watson removing items from the grave of his wife, Tina at a Birmingham area cemetery.
"I don't see any relevance of that," Nail said.
But the judge said he would wait until the trial starts to rule on whether jurors can see a prosecution video re-enacting the scuba diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef where Tina Watson died. Defense attorneys have objected to jurors seeing the reenactment, saying it only speculates with the prosecution's theory of how Tina Watson died.
Nail said he would hold a hearing once the trial starts on whether jurors should see the reenactment.
Nail told attorneys he has reserved four weeks on his calendar for the trial, which will be held in a large courtroom in the basement of the Jefferson County Judicial Building. The giant courtroom is generally reserved for high profile cases that are expected to generate heavy media coverage.
Watson sat quietly next to defense attorneys during the hearing. He made no comment to reporters.
Defense attorneys complained that prosecutors have not allowed them to talk with a lead investigator in the case. Nail did not order prosecutors to make the investigator available, but said he expects prosecutors to comply with his order that both sides fully disclose all evidence they expect to present during the trial.
"I don't see what the reluctance is. This case has been investigated to death," Nice said.
Deputy Attorney General Don Valeska said prosecutors have shared all evidence with the defense. He said he does not consider the investigator a witness.
The judge said he expects to bring in 70 potential jurors from which attorneys will choose.
Tina and Gabe Watson met while both were students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She died while the couple was diving on a century-old shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef about 10 days after they were married.
Prosecutors claim Watson caused her death by cutting off her air supply while they were diving. Defense attorneys say the death was an accident.
Watson, who lives in the Birmingham area and is free on bond, is charged with capital murder, but prosecutors agreed they would not seek the death penalty in exchange for Australia extraditing Watson. In Australia, Watson pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge and served 18 months in prison.
Nail earlier refused a defense motion that he dismiss the charges based on double jeopardy because of the time Watson has already served in prison in Australia.
Prosecutors claim that Watson planned his wife's death while in Alabama so he could collect life insurance money.
Defense attorney Joseph Basgier said the 34-year-old Watson is ready to get the trial started.
"He's anxious. He's nervous. He's ready to get this trial behind him so he can be a free person," Basgier said.

Anchorage shipwreck explorer lives a life aquatic

2011-12-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

By JERZY SHEDLOCK
Peninsula Clarion

KENAI, Alaska (AP) — Between 1910 and 1920, an average of one ship per month ran aground in the waters surrounding Alaska.
Although unfortunate for captains and crews at the time, the wrecks would provide a playground decades later for Steve Lloyd, an Anchorage based scuba diver and shipwreck explorer.
"I've always been fascinated by ghost towns, shipwrecks, abandoned factories and anything with a hidden story that's somehow tied to the past," Lloyd said.
Lloyd discussed his various shipwreck searches and other Alaska scuba diving adventures to a crowd of 50 people at Tustumena Elementary School last week. His discoveries include three lost Alaska shipwrecks.
The Alaska Steamship Company liner S.S. Farallon, which ran aground in lower Cook Inlet in January 1910, was Lloyd's first subject during his presentation. He located the Farallon in 1998.

Steve Lloyd poses by one of a wrecked ship’s bow anchors on a reef at the mouth of Port Graham in lower Cook Inlet in Alaska in this undated photo. Lloyd discussed his various shipwreck searches and other Alaska scuba diving adventures to a crowd at Tustumena Elementary School in Kenai, Alaska last week. His discoveries include three lost Alaska shipwrecks.

The ship's lifeboats carried 38 survivors to the shore of Iliamna Bay where they constructed tents from the Farallon's sails. The survivors — all men — were stranded in winter with little provisions or hope of rescue.
Unique to the shipwreck was amateur photographer and the ship's mail clerk John E. Thwaites. He took high-quality photos of the wrecked ship and the crew's trials of survival — for example, frostbitten men with burlap wrapped on their feet.
Details of the shipwreck, and the mission of six men who struck out in an open boat to seek help, are fleshed out in Lloyd's book "Farallon: Shipwreck and Survival on the Alaska Shore," published in 2000 by Washington State University Press.
During the presentation Lloyd showed clips of a BBC documentary of Alaska survivor stories that included the Farallon, which was filmed in 2001. He was the film's historical and location advisor and underwater videographer.
"For the film's camp scenes, we used my front yard in Anchorage," he said.
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In 1998, Lloyd learned to scuba dive. A year or so later, he was looking for a place within driving distance of Anchorage to dive from shore and practice. The remnants of Seward's old dock became his stomping grounds.
Lloyd has dived at the location about 100 times.
"In the summer, you can't see more than a foot or two underwater, so the only time I can dive (in Seward) is in the winter — the colder, the better," he said.
Seward is an optimal diving spot because of its historical importance.
Artifacts can be found in the water from multiple destructive incidents the growing town suffered throughout its history.
Like many boom towns of its era, the closely spaced wooden structures of downtown Seward were a fire hazard. Lloyd displayed pictures of the town's most destructive fire on the night of Nov. 23, 1941.
One picture displayed mounds of frosted debris, as the overnight temperature during the fire dropped to 18 degrees Fahrenheit, with a steady 30 mile-per-hour wind from the north.
"Bulldozers were called in to clean up the rubble. Any guess where they put it?" Lloyd asked. "I've never been able to confirm it in official records, but I'm pretty sure they pushed a lot of it into the drink. I've seen charred wood and melted glass underwater, and I think this is where it came from."
The town recovered, but it was struck hard by the Good Friday earthquake in March 1964. The land along the waterfront split into fissures, and a strip from 50 to 600 feet wide broke off and slid into the bay, Lloyd said.
"Although there's not much surge (tidal power) this deep, the bottom is gradually eroding away and exposing more than a hundred years of buried junk.
"Since Seward was a regular port of call for all steamship lines that served Alaska, one of the coolest things to find is a piece of china with a steamship company logo on it," he said.
The second Cook Inlet shipwreck discovery by Lloyd was the Torrent, lost along the then-uncharted coast on July 15, 1868.
"Everyone made it into the ship's boats, and after an hour of hard rowing against the wind and seas, they reached the beach at Cole Cove," Lloyd recounted.
Carrying 125 U.S. Army soldiers of Battery F, Artillery division — men sent north to protect American interests in the Cook Inlet region following purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 — marks the wrecked ship's historical importance. The loss of the ship's supplies and provisions was a blow to the state.
"It's particularly telling when (Lt. McGilvray, the Army lieutenant commanding the expedition) lists under clothing, 'That in which they were dressed' and under arms 'Dry ammunition sufficient to load the small arms once,'" he said.
Lloyd used an illustration clipped from an East Coast newspaper drawn by an officer on the expedition to find the Torrent.
Using a distinctive pinnacle rock in the drawing Lloyd and a small group of colleagues narrowed their search area to a "small group of breaking reefs a half-mile offshore, which is where we eventually found the scattered remains of the Torrent."
Pictures of the ship's salvage found over the course of many dives were shown. Bronze drift pins used to fasten the ship's oak timbers, hundreds of pieces of copper bottom sheeting, bow anchors and portholes that had fallen away from the sides of the ship as the wood that held them was eaten by shipworms.
"The heavy iron and bronze pieces we found we so thoroughly scattered, we could tell the Torrent had grounded and moved across the reef as she broke up," he said.
The most significant find of the dives was the ship's lost mountain howitzer, which was an artillery weapon used by the army during both World Wars.
The large cannon barrel was found in a narrow channel between two steep faces of rock, Lloyd said.
"... I spotted the telltale green patina that bronze gets after long years in salt water," he said.
Several different types of cannon shot were also recovered from the area around the howitzer. Lloyd displayed an underwater picture of himself holding up a round of canister shot. The 50-caliber lead round consisted of about 30 rounds that would leave the barrel like a gigantic shotgun.
The howitzer was recovered for conservation and eventual display.
"We attached inflatable lift bags, which were filled with compressed air from a scuba tank to provide buoyancy as we swam the howitzer out of the crack in the reef," he said.
Conservation of the howitzer took place at the Texas A&M marine archeology lab. It was soaked in fresh water for two years and chemically stabilized, so the metal can be exposed to the air without further deterioration.
The state museum system now owns the Torrent's howitzer, and it is on its way back to Alaska.
"It is my hope that Pratt Museum in Homer will develop a Torrent exhibit that will allow the howitzer to reside there on long-term loan, where residents and visitors can learn about this little-known chapter in Alaska's history," Lloyd said.
Lloyd detailed many other dives during his presentation, such as the recovery of a floatplane from Legler Lake, the exploration of Ellamar Copper Mine in Prince William Sound and the discovery of the S.S. Aleutian shipwreck near Kodiak Island.
He also joked about his work on an Alaska episode of Man vs. Wild, a Discovery Channel survival television series.

Massachusetts man lives a life of adventure

2011-12-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

By STEVE PFARRER
Daily Hampshire Gazette

BELCHERTOWN, Mass. (AP) — He was swimming, very slowly, in about 150 feet of ocean water, trying to make his way through the darkened wreckage of a Japanese freighter from World War II. To avoid stirring the silty water any more than necessary, he didn't use fins, but instead pulled his way past an old catwalk in the freighter's engine room.
And that's when it happened - the crumbling path gave way and began to fall, sending other catwalks tumbling through the murky water. The diver cowered near the bottom of the ship, his hands covering his head, trying to avoid being battered by 250 pounds of corroded steel.
Just another day in the adventurous life of Peter Piemonte.
Piemonte, of Belchertown, laughs and shakes his head as he recalls this episode, which took place last November near the island of Peleliu (now Palua) in Micronesia, site of a famous invasion by U.S. Marines during the war.
"I remember thinking, 'I'm going to get pinned down here, and no one knows I'm even here,' " he says. "What a spot to be in. In the end, I was fine, I didn't get hit by anything, but there was so much silt stirred up, it was just pitch-black — I had to grope my way out."
That's a risk you take when one of your hobbies is deep-sea diving. There's also passing out underwater because of problems with your air supply, or getting decompression sickness — more commonly known as "the bends" — when you ascend too fast, allowing bubbles of dissolved gas to spread through your body.
But Piemonte, 57, knows a bit about handling risk — and minimizing it so that it doesn't get in the way of adventure. He's a longtime commercial pilot who's flown all over the world and navigated any number of storms and difficult, windswept landings. He's been diving off and on since his teenage years, fascinated with exploring old shipwrecks and the stories and artifacts they reveal.
Piemonte has pursued diving as a serious hobby for about 15 years, sometimes crewing with a research vessel based on Long Island that takes divers to famous wrecks like the Italian passenger liner Andrea Doria, which sank off the coast of Nantucket in 1956. The boat, the Garloo, also searches for possible wreck sites. Piemonte does cave and lake diving, too, sometimes alone and sometimes with other enthusiasts.
Sure it can be dangerous, he says, but the potential threats are outweighed by the challenge and thrill of discovery that comes with Piemonte's full-throttle pastimes.
"The idea of seeing something that no one has seen since it slipped beneath the waves is just fascinating," he says of diving. "You're looking at a moment that's frozen in time."
In late September, Piemonte was relaxing at his Belchertown home after 10 days of flying to various spots in the western United States. He's the aviation manager and one of three pilots for a small company that flies clients to business meetings and vacation destinations on a trim, three-engine jet — a Dassault Falcon 900. The plane operates out of Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, but Piemonte books the flights from his house.
It was a chance encounter at a small eastern Massachusetts airport in early 1973, when Piemonte was about 19, that led him to explore the air.
"I was working for a brick mason at the time who was taking flying lessons, and he took me up in a plane," Piemonte recalls. "It was kind of fun. Then sometime later, this buddy and I were bored, so we pulled into this place at the Beverly Airport that said 'Scenic Rides.' The guy behind the counter said, 'Why would a guy like you want to take a ride? For another $15, I'll give you a log book and let you fly the plane.' "
So Piemonte began taking flying lessons, though he says he had no intention at the time of becoming a professional pilot. He was more interested in exploring the outdoors on the ground: He was studying wildlife biology and conservation technology at a community college, and he also hunted and did motocross racing. He figured he would look for some kind of career in the outdoors.
But after a while, he says, "The siren song of aviation got really strong."
Once he got his pilot's license, he took on a variety of jobs out of that same Beverly Airport: towing banners, hauling freight, doing some flight instruction himself. In 1978 he was certified to fly small jets and began his career piloting corporate jets, working out of a couple of airports, including Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport. He's been with his current employer, Janus Equities, for about 20 years.
His schedule is highly variable from week to week, with the most typical trip lasting three to five days. He and a co-pilot shuttle up to a dozen clients per flight on three to four separate trips a month. Those journeys have taken him all over the world: to South America, Europe, the Caribbean.
"I've been very fortunate that my career has afforded me a tremendous amount of travel and opportunity to try different things," says Piemonte, who is single with no children. "I have enough time off between flights to do things I really enjoy like diving, golf and shooting and to have great friends and camaraderie."
Though he's lived in Belchertown since the late 1970s, when he started working at Barnes, Piemonte grew up in Salem. He first got the scuba-diving bug by reading about submarine warfare in World War II and the underwater explorations of Jacques Cousteau. Piemonte dived in the ocean, and also in inland waters like the Merrimack River.
His zeal for the sport waned a bit following an episode in 1978 helping a friend salvage a small plane that had crashed in the Merrimack.
"This was in February, and I spent a week in the water, in a wet suit, and I froze my ass off," he says with a laugh. "I said to myself, 'That wasn't any fun.' I didn't dive again in New England for a long time after that."
But in the mid-1990s, when his pilot duties began taking him to Mexico and the Caribbean, he took up saltwater fly-fishing and spear fishing. That prompted him to buy a 20-foot boat, which then prompted another thought: "You know, I could go scuba diving off this."
For some years he'd also been doing aerobatics in a rented propeller plane for fun — he was considering investing in his own plane — but he abandoned recreational flying once he got serious about diving again.
"I couldn't do both at the same time," he says. "They both demand your full attention, and I thought, 'If I don't drop one of these, I'm going to get hurt.' "
And Piemonte has been hurt. Once he was badly sickened during a dive when the carbon dioxide filtering device on his rebreather, which contains a mix of lithium and sodium hydroxide, got wet, causing the chemicals to foam up into a caustic cocktail. He burned his lips, mouth and lungs and had to use air from a spare oxygen canister to get back to the surface. "I was so sick," he says. "I couldn't taste anything for two weeks after that."
Even though scuba divers sometimes swim together, they operate as individuals; it's not like flying, where there's a co-pilot, Piemonte says. "You can't communicate," he says of diving. "Any problems you encounter, you have to solve them underwater ... That puts a burden on your equipment, your training and your ability to maintain control. You have to think your way out of the problem."
Sometimes that's not enough. He's lost a few friends over the years who ran into trouble like equipment failure that causes a rapid ascent and a fatal case of the bends. Just this year, he notes, five divers from the Northeast have died. "It's something you always have to be aware of."
But if you plan carefully, he adds, and you keep your cool in tight spots, you get the rewards — like investigating a sunken German U-boat, the U-853, near Block Island, R.I.; the Empress of Ireland, an ocean liner that sank in the St. Lawrence River in Canada in 1914; or the entwined wrecks of two coal-carrying schooners, the Palmer and the Crary, which collided and went to the bottom of Massachusetts Bay in 1902.
"Even though people will say I do risky things, I don't really agree," Piemonte says. "There is an element of risk, no doubt about it, but I always feel that my temperament, my equipment and my training will trump most any problem I encounter — and so far it has."
Piemonte's living room is a shrine to many of the underwater sites he's explored, a window to the past: old clocks, portholes, navigation equipment, well-preserved china and bottles decorate his mantel, cover his walls and fill his shelves.
"When I pass, I will give all my artifacts to people who value them," he says. "They'll be taken care of, they'll be displayed and in the end they'll go to a museum somewhere."
These days Piemonte's doing less diving, but not because of safety concerns. He is devoting more time to his newest hobby, target shooting with pistols.
He says he used to be a good shot when he hunted game birds, like grouse, with a shotgun. Piemonte jokes that he's having a harder time with small arms.
"Eh, I'm old," he says by way of explanation.
But that's a bit of an under-sell: Last year Piemonte, who makes his own ammunition, took fourth place in the senior classic division of a revolver championship hosted by the International Confederation of Revolver Enthusiasts in California.
Piemonte doesn't know what new hobbies the future might bring, but he figures whatever they are, he'll do them full tilt.
"I'm a busy guy," he says, "and I like bringing new challenges to my life."

Portion of Georgia reef reserved for researchers

2011-12-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — A portion of a reef sanctuary off the Georgia coast has been closed to fishermen and scuba divers.
The Brunswick News reports that officials with Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary say the southern third section of the 22-mile reef will be reserved for research.
Although fishing and diving are now prohibited there, vessels will be allowed to travel across the area as long as they do not stop.
George Sedberry, superintendent of the Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, says the protected area will be used by scientists to study potential impacts from various activities on natural resources, including bottom fishing, climate change and natural events such as hurricanes and droughts.

Learn how to save a life with CPR and first aid training

2011-11-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

Done properly and with adequate training, scuba diving is tremendous fun and relatively safe.

Still, functioning in an underwater environment is unnatural and potentially dangerous.

That’s why all divers, regardless of how often they dive, should become competent in life-saving measures.

After all, there aren’t many things more important than learning how to save a life. Unfortunately, too few of us really know what to do if we come across a person in trouble and in need of medical attention.

That was part of my motivation for getting certified on Nov. 12 in first aid, CPR and O2 provider. I hadn’t had a CPR, or cardio pulminary resuscitation, class since I was in Cub Scouts, and I was a little surprised by how much the certification class had changed.

First of all, the speed at which the chest compressions are admininistered is TWICE as fast as I recall. And this change, as recommended by the American Heart Association, has taken place in just the last two years.

Perhaps you remember saying “one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand” as the pace to provide the compressions used to restart the heart. In my most-recent class, we were instructed to deliver compressions at the speed of the beat to the Bee Gees tune “Stayin’ Alive.”

Sing it with me now: “Ah, ah, ah, ah, Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive. Ah, ah, ah, ah Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive.” Apparently disco is back in vogue.

The reason for the increased speed, according to our instructor, BJ Stapp, a firefighter, medic and instruction coordinator for Michigan CPR, is the need to deliver as many beats to the heart as possible in the crucial first five minutes after a person goes into cardiac arrest. The American Heart Association recommends 100 compressions per minute, exactly the beat speed of “Stayin’ Alive.” Going too slowly doesn’t generate enough blood flow, and going too fast doesn’t allow the heart to fill properly between compressions.

For those of you still burning any disco records you can get your hands on, the beat to Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” will also work.

There are several other changes to CPR procedure, (too many to mention here), made as recently as five or six years ago, which is another reason to refresh your certification.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that the first five minutes, the first couple of minutes that someone is having a medical emergency, are the most important,” Stapp said. “And that’s usually the time that it takes the medical responders, the professionals to get there. So if people can learn what to do correctly, and learn how to do it with confidence, they can make a big difference.”

Regarding scuba diving, Stapp said it’s not necessarily injuries caused by the dive that require the most medical attention, but rather inherent problems the diver had before he or she undertook the dive that are triggered under the application of the dive.

“What we don’t realize with the pressure changes and some of the activities and things that we are doing, there is a lot of demand on our bodies. And all this demand can cause a lot of problems. They can be as simple as an underlying problem that we already have, like diabetes, or asthma, or something more serious like a diving emergency.”

The most serious diving emergency, according to Stapp, is a heart attack, most often brought about by physical exertion under the water.

“When diving, there is an increased workload on the heart. Because when we go under that pressure it kind of pushes the blood to the core of our body and makes our heart work more. And so when it works more, we have an increased chance for a heart attack,” he said.

Stapp spent about six hours Saturday teaching a small group of students first aid and CPR, and how to use an AED, or automated external defibrillator. We were also taught how to administer oxygen to victims in need. Each of the certifications is good for two years.

Most commonly, divers will need to inhale pure oxygen if they ascend to the surface too quickly. The oxygen helps push out the nitrogen loading caused by the quick ascent and reduces the chances of decompression sickness.

I also discovered breathing pure oxygen can cure my biggest problem: headaches caused by a high number of dives in a short period of time. When I go on a dive vacation, I try to cram as many dives as I can into that short period of time. I usually do a minimum of three dives a day, and sometimes four if I can squeeze in a night dive. All of that diving builds up carbon dioxide (CO2) in the blood, and causes my head to feel like a large pumpkin. Stapp said taking deep breaths and long exhales just before asending to complete a dive can help, as well as taking in oxygen after the dive has been completed.

The students were put through a variety of emergency situations and taught how to respond. In addition to the CPR, students were also taught how to help someone who is choking by using both adult and infant manikins. First aid training included what to do for allergic reactions, heart attack, fainting, diabetes and low blood sugar, stroke, seizure and shock. The procedures not only provide aid for the victim, but also provide protection for those administering the aid.

Stapp said first aid and CPR programs are available through the American Heart Association, the Red Cross, fire departments, places that train lifeguards, local universities, and of course Stapp’s program, Michigan CPR, for which more information can be found at www.MichiganCPR.com

This article and video are scuba specific. My general story and video about the CPR and first aid training can be found at macombdaily.com with this link: www.macombdaily.com/articles/2011/11/12/news/doc4ebf350c20aae105287714.txt

Don Gardner can be reached at don.gardner@macombdaily.com

Police postpone retrieval of cannon from river

2011-09-17T17:11:00.000-07:00

DETROIT (AP) — Police divers on Sept. 7 postponed retrieval of a possibly centuries-old cannon from the Detroit River after strong currents and murky water thwarted efforts to raise it to the surface.
The divers were assisted by the U.S. Coast Guard until the operation was shut down, Detroit police spokeswoman Eren Stephens said.
No new recovery date was announced.

This photo shot by Sgt. Ken Stiel and provided by the Detroit Police department shows a cannon believed to be more than 200 years old in the Detroit River. Divers planned on recovering the cannon on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011, before murky waters and a strong current forced a cancellation of the project. It's the fifth cannon found in the area in three decades.

Dive team members discovered the cannon about 200 feet from Cobo Center in downtown Detroit during a training session in July. It's the fifth cannon found in the area in three decades.
Once it's recovered, the Detroit Historical Society hopes to restore and preserve the cannon, which is more than 6 feet long and likely weighs about 1,200 pounds.
Three other cannons were recovered in the 1980s and a fourth was recovered by the department's dive team in 1994. Those are believed to be British and French. Detroit Historical Society Curator Joel Stone said the latest find will be studied to try to determine its age and where it came from.
"This is all kind of a detective thing," Stone said. "You get one piece of the puzzle, and then you get another piece of the puzzle."
The cannon could be one of several believed to have fallen into the river in 1796 when they were being transported by the British, Detroit police said. Cannons that have been found in the area, however, also may have gone down anytime up to the War of 1812, Stone said.
Sgt. Dean Rademaker, who took part in the dive when the last cannon was found in 1994, spotted what turned out to be the latest one in July. Department divers previously had been to that area of the river hundreds of times without finding it, Rademaker said.
"I thought to myself, 'You gotta be kidding me,'" he said of the discovery.

Divers more typically find cars and guns. In 2009 during a training session, they turned up a 6-foot, 300-pound bronze statue that had been missing for more than eight years from the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. The statue was returned to its suburban Detroit home.