tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25610927855061196872024-03-13T03:31:04.025-07:00Diver DownDon Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.comBlogger88125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-22112746259302601092014-02-28T13:43:00.000-08:002014-02-28T13:43:22.607-08:00Scuba diving at Isle Royale<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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For more than 100 years, Isle Royale has been a royal pain in
the side of shipping operators trying to deliver cargo to and from Minnesota
and Ontario, Canada and back through Lake Superior to locations in the Lower
Peninsula.</div>
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Though Isle Royale is only 46 miles long and a little less
than 9 miles wide, the island has an extensive reef system that extends well
beyond its on-land dimensions. Those reefs have snagged 25 shipwrecks that have
found their final resting place around the island’s perimeter. So while the
beautiful island has historically been a nuisance to the shipping industry, it
provides a perfect wonderland for scuba divers. With it’s clear cold water,
wrecks remain pristinely preserved.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Russ Haeberle, a member of The Ford Seahorses Scuba Diving
Club, visited the island for a tech-diving trip last summer and talked about it
in a presentation called “Isle Royale – Lake Superior Paradise” at the Great
Lake Shipwreck Festival in Ann Arbor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The beautiful thing about Lake Superior is the fact that
there are no zebra mussels,” Haeberle said. “You can see the shipwrecks as they
were years ago. You lose the detail with zebra mussels as they cover the
vessel. With these wrecks, you can still see the grain of the wood.”</div>
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The video Haeberle and his group brought back from Isle
Royale is stunning. After diving wrecks in the other Great Lakes that are
completely coated with a layer of zebra mussels, seeing his video was a real
treat. Cargo in the holds, such as farm supplies in one of the featured wrecks,
is easily identifiable. And normal Great Lakes visibility looks like it is at
least doubled.</div>
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“The clarity of the water is great, the visibility is
phenomenal,” he said. “The island has protected bays and coves so if weather
gets rough, you can go to the other side of the island and get in the lee of
the wind and dive a wreck in another location. So you very seldom get blown off
the water. When you’re out on the Great Lakes normally, and you’re 10 miles out
and there’s bad weather, you can’t get out.”</div>
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The guys also spent some time inland, hiking and fishing
some of Isle Royale’s many inland lakes. So there is plenty to do on the island
while friends or spouses are out diving.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Haeberle and company did several deep dives considered tech
dives, and used tri-mix -- helium, oxygen and nitrogen – as their breathable
gas. All of the featured dives were at least 150 feet deep.</div>
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One of the wrecks they visited was the Kamloops, a 250-foot
steel canaler, which sank in 1927. Haeberle called it the holy grail of Isle
Royale shipwrecks. The ship lies in 180 to 270 feet of water. It sank in a
December storm. She was hauling a load of paper mill machinery, pipe, shoes and
tar paper, with a deck load of fencing materials. She was bound for Fort
William near Thunder Bay, Ontario, as she passed through the Soo Locks on Dec.
4. She sank in the storm around Dec. 6 It as been described as one of the
ghost ships of the Great Lakes because it’s not known how or why the ship sunk,
and it lost all hands with few or no traces of what happened. The ship was
discovered in 1977 in almost perfect condition. Video from the presentation
shows fencing materials still sitting in the hold, along the farming equipment. There is even a coil of rope that sits intact
and undisturbed almost 90 years later.</div>
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The second ship, the Emperor, is a 525-foot steel freighter
that sank in 1947. It sits in 110 to 175 feet of water. It has the distinction
of being the last ship to sink at Isle Royale. It met its end due to human
navigational errors, and struck Canoe Rocks and sank in 20 to 30 minutes,
killing 12 of the crew, including the captain and first mate. Most of the
casualties occurred when a lifeboat was sucked under by the ship as it sank.
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kimball happened to be nearby and saved some of
those who survived the sinking.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The third ship was the engine of the Henry Chisholm, a
270-foot wooden bulk freighter, which sunk in 1898. The engine sits in 115 to
155 feet of water. It was carrying 92,000 bushels of barley from Duluth, Minn.
It went down in an October gale. The wreck did not result in any loss of life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Isle Royale is a true wilderness paradise. It is a Michigan national park and one of the few island national parks in the United
States. To get there requires about 11 hours of driving from the Detroit area,
plus a three-hour ferry ride from Copper Harbor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The positive side of the out-of-the-way location is the lack
of diver traffic. Haeberle’s group visited in the first week of September and
had each wreck to themselves during diving.</div>
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The downside is the water, while very clear, is always cold.
Dry suit diving is not required, but it is recommended.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I would not recommend diving their in a wetsuit. You’re
going to get very cold,” Haeberle said. “Some of the temperatures we
encountered were in the mid to high 30s. That’s even in September, after you’ve
had the whole summer to warm up the lake.”</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/jgtLG4yBe2o?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Above is part of my interview with Haeberle and some video from his dives with Superior Diver Charter.</div>
Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-63899021407148078182014-02-18T08:26:00.001-08:002014-02-18T08:27:20.725-08:0033rd Annual Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival set for Feb 22 at Washtenaw Community CollegeThe Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival will be this Saturday, Feb. 22, at WCC.<br />
Here is the link to my story that appeared in the Macomb Daily.<a href="http://www.macombdaily.com/environment-and-nature/20140212/great-lakes-shipwreck-festival-a-celebration-of-regions-rich-marine-heritage"> Click here</a>Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-28495809024771007242014-01-22T13:27:00.000-08:002014-01-22T13:27:07.145-08:00Warren diver helps find Civil War-era shipwreck<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vv82ZUERNpg/UuAzE_UkvzI/AAAAAAAAAHs/ZhUqPA3z5Uo/s1600/martylutz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vv82ZUERNpg/UuAzE_UkvzI/AAAAAAAAAHs/ZhUqPA3z5Uo/s1600/martylutz.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marty Lutz</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i3wvdfp6UhA/UuAzY5XtsII/AAAAAAAAAH4/gakQuHKUEDA/s1600/keystone4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i3wvdfp6UhA/UuAzY5XtsII/AAAAAAAAAH4/gakQuHKUEDA/s1600/keystone4.jpg" height="176" title="A diver moves past the sidewheel of the Keystone State. " width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A diver moves past the sidewheel of the Keystone State.</td></tr>
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Marty Lutz describes his hobby as a shipwreck hunter as being akin to that of a skydiver: hours and hours of preparation and training for a few moments of complete exhilaration.<br />Lutz, 57, of Warren, Michigan, was part of the team that discovered the Keystone State shipwreck in Lake Huron last summer. Undersea Research Associates, headed and funded by David Trotter of Canton, found the wreck the weekend of July 6, 2013, ending the mystery of one of the Great Lakes most opulent ships. Trotter made the find public last December.<br />The Keystone State was a Civil War-era steamer built for the passenger and package cargo trade. She sank in a furious gale in November 1861. In her day, she was called a “Palace Steamer.” She was rumored to be carrying gold and war materials meant for the Civil War.<br />
For more than 150 years, she remained hidden under a blanket of cold, dark water, eluding generations of search efforts. That’s until Lutz and company found her last summer. She was immediately recognizable by her large sidewheel. She was the last sidewheel-style ship of its size that hadn’t been discovered in the Great Lakes.<br />“We weren’t even looking for the Keystone State to be honest with you,” Lutz said. “The last eyewitness reports had her going down by the Thumb, and we found her 40-50 miles from there.”<br />The 288-foot ship is believed to have succumbed to the storm either Nov. 9 or Nov. 10, 1861, and all 33 members of her crew perished. Adding to the mystery is that it took more than a week for the first pieces of debris from the Keystone to appear. The cabin broke off and washed away near Pointe aux Barques at the tip of Michigan’s Thumb.<br />Since the ship was found further north between Alpena and Harrisville, Lutz said his group figures the crew must have struggled for several horrifying hours on the surface in a desperate attempt to survive.<br />“When I see a new wreck for first time, I immediately think of circumstances that brought it to that position. I think about the people, what they went through, the struggle they went through. You become very emotional and very respectful,” Lutz said.<br />While discovering a new shipwreck is exciting, the buildup and preparation leading to the discovery can be anything but. The team began their search in April by plotting a search grid. Searching would go on every weekend, with overnights spent on the water. What follows is a long, tedious, detailed search pattern over the grid.<br />Little time is spent diving, and lots of time is spent killing time.<br />“It’s a great time to catch up on your reading, look at your computer, watch movies,” Lutz said. “Sure, there’s lots of boredom, but when you come across a wreck, it gets everyone’s excitement up. It also gets exciting when a freighter goes by in the middle of the night. You don’t want to alter your line, but somebody has to move. But you try to monitor their movement before it becomes an issue.”<br />With today’s modern improvements to side scan sonar technology, in which images of the floor of the lake are created by bouncing sound waves off the lake bottom and back up to the search vessel, team members top side were quickly able to determine they had discovered a large wreck.<br />With the trademark sidewheel clearly visible in the sonar, they knew they had found the Keystone State, with the ship and its debris field lying in 150-200 feet of water.<br />The next step is to establish a setting line, in which a group of divers takes a line down from the research vessel and attaches it to the wreck. Both Lutz and Trotter have said being in that first group is a mixed blessing.<br />The first group has the honor of being the first group to lay eyes on something that hasn’t been seen for a long time (in this case 150 years), but their first responsibility is attaching the set line. But they only have 15-20 minutes of bottom time before taking more than an hour to ascend back to the surface to off gas and make required decompression stops.<br />The second group doesn’t get the honor of, metaphorically speaking, getting to the mountaintop first, but they do get to explore the wreck in its entirety and provide the first video record of the lost ship.<br />“We switch roles back and forth,” Lutz said of the dive team. “And if you set the line fairly quickly, you have some time to explore, so both roles are enjoyable.”<br />Preparing for such a deep dive in a cold water environment takes time. Between training and prepping equipment, which endures a lot of stress on such a dive, and travelling to the dive site, via car and then boat, Lutz estimates for every minute of bottom time exploring a newly discovered wreck, an hour is spent in preparation. But clearly for Lutz and company, the time and effort are worth it.<br />“Although you’re down there with other divers, it’s not a team sport really, it’s more of a personal thing,” he said. “You feel, when you are down there, like it’s almost ghostly at times, especially when you see bones or shoes on the wreck. You know people are there and people lost their lives on these wrecks.”<br />Due to improvements in sonar technology, most shipwreck hunters agree any remaining Great Lakes shipwrecks will probably be discovered in the next 15-20 years. That means the era of Great Lakes shipwreck hunting is quickly coming to an end. After helping discover more than his share of wrecks, Lutz admits he is lucky to be here during such a high time in exploration.<br />Plans for the 2014 exploration season include examining the debris field of the Keystone State, including searching for the mysterious gold, and continuing the search for two ships that went down during the Great Lakes Storm of 1913: the Argus and the James Carruthers, which both went down in Lake Huron.<br />
To see video of Undersea Research Associates exploration of the Keystone State, click here: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJNmIFUfcf4&authuser=0">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJNmIFUfcf4&authuser=0</a>Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-8797702899718764162014-01-02T08:32:00.002-08:002014-01-02T08:33:46.849-08:00<span style="font-size: x-large;">Civil War-era shipwreck discovered in Lake Huron</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ub6ruPEO6_k/UsWUAYwhFqI/AAAAAAAAAHY/TTeChypSs8E/s1600/keystone4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ub6ruPEO6_k/UsWUAYwhFqI/AAAAAAAAAHY/TTeChypSs8E/s320/keystone4.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photos courtesy of David Trotter Divers examine the wreck of the Keystone State a 288-foot side-wheel steamer that sank in Lake Huron in 1961. One of its large, intact paddlewheels can be seen in the background. The wreck was discovered in July 2013. </td></tr>
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One of the most luxurious ships to ply the Great Lakes during the Civil War era has been found in Lake Huron. <br />
The Keystone State, a side-wheel steamer, was found in this summer by veteran shipwreck hunter David Trotter of Canton and his team, Undersea Research Associates. <br />
The search group is an operation funded by Trotter and includes a small group of volunteer divers and support personnel. Trotter and crew found the vessel between Alpena and Harrisville in the northeast portion of the Lower Peninsula, about 40 miles offshore. He said the team found the vessel during the waning days of the search season.<br />
The 288-foot Keystone State was one of the most opulent vessels of her day. She was built for the passenger and package cargo trade, running regular routes from Buffalo to Chicago and Milwaukee. During her heyday, she was called a “Palace Steamer.”<br />
But when she sank in a furious gale in November 1861, she was rumored to be carrying gold and war materials meant for the Civil War. <br />
Prior to pushing off from Detroit on Nov. 8, she was loaded with cargo described as “iron implements (farm implements).” Her destination was reported to be Milwaukee, Wis. Some experts believe the cargo was actually gold and military supplies destined for Civil War battlefields, and these items were deliberately mislabeled to hide the true nature of the cargo manifests from Confederate spies. Trotter said it would have been odd to ship farm implements during the winter.<br />
The Keystone State was last seen off Port Austin near the tip of Michigan’s thumb area in a disabled condition and rolling heavily in rough water.<br />
According to Trotter, records indicate she went down either Nov. 9 or 10, and all 33 crew members perished.<br />
It took more than a week for the first pieces of debris from the Keystone to appear, only adding more questions for those trying to find out where the ship had succumbed. For the last 150 years, her final resting place has been a mystery.<br />
Thanks to recent technological improvements in side-scan sonar technology, more of the deep wrecks that have remained hidden to previous generations of shipwreck hunters are being discovered. <br />
Trotter knew he had found a significant wreck last July not only due to the size of the ship that sonar detected, but also because it had a large sidewheel, which made the ship easy to identify.<br />
“This was the only sidewheel steamer of this size that remained to be discovered in Lake Huron,” Trotter said.<br />
The steamer and its debris field was discovered in 150-200 feet of water, requiring divers with technical skills to descend to such depths. Divers only had 15 to 20 minutes to explore the wreck before spending more than an hour in decompression stops while heading back to the surface.<br />
Trotter, 73, said the team has yet to determine how much of the damage on the ship occurred topside and how much occurred when she hit the bottom.<br />
“Her fight to survive, over many hours on the surface, caused her to have significant damage before sinking,” he said. “Then 150 years on the floor of Lake Huron contributed to gradual deterioration. Yet her large paddlewheels remain intact, and her beautiful ‘walking beam’ steam engine sits upright, and her boilers are still in place.<br />
Trotter said the dive team didn’t find any of the rumored gold or farm implements in the Keystone’s empty cargo hold. It would be common for the ship’s crew to dump cargo in an attempt to keep the ship afloat. But that doesn’t mean he and his crew will stop looking.<br />
“Because of the depth of the wreck site and the remoteness of the area where the ship foundered, exploring and documenting the wreck site takes some time and effort,” he said. “Of course, one always wonders if the story of the gold bullion/coins is true, and perhaps we eventually will make that ‘one of a kind’ discovery. … We still have some exploring to do in the large debris field.”<br />
<br />Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-83215605506706740132013-08-20T13:04:00.004-07:002013-08-20T13:09:40.861-07:00Michigan's governor Rick Snyder goes diving in Lake Huron and promotes Great Lakes divingMichigan's governor Rick Snyder went for a dive in Lake Huron on Tuesday, Aug. 20 in the Thunder Bay Sanctuary in part to promote scuba diving in the Great Lakes.<br />
<br />
Here is a link to the story and video:<br />
<a href="http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan-governor-plans-to-scuba-dive-at-great-lake-shipwreck-in-lake-huron-near-alpena/-/1719418/21538042/-/rms0br/-/index.html">http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan-governor-plans-to-scuba-dive-at-great-lake-shipwreck-in-lake-huron-near-alpena/-/1719418/21538042/-/rms0br/-/index.html</a>Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-2677939843343707662013-06-17T11:14:00.001-07:002013-06-17T11:37:24.662-07:00Expedition searches for Griffin shipwreck in Lake Michigan<div style="text-align: right;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FBjkva4MnzI/Ub9NiVQJSaI/AAAAAAAAAGg/uJ7P2GU_pJo/s1600/griffin2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">Potentially big news about the the Griffin, a 17 century ship commanded by French explorer La Salle.</a><br />
<img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FBjkva4MnzI/Ub9NiVQJSaI/AAAAAAAAAGg/uJ7P2GU_pJo/s320/griffin2.jpg" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span id="_oneup" style="font-size: 11px;">Steve Libert, head of the
expedition seeking the explorer La Salle’s lost ship the Griffin, stands
on a fishing boat as dive teams prepare to inspect a site Saturday,
June 15, 2013, in northern Lake Michigan where he believes the vessel
may have sunk.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span id="_oneup" style="font-size: 11px;">Michel L’Hour, director of
France’s Department of Underwater Archaeological Research, prepares to
dive to what explorers believe may be the site of the long-lost ship the
Griffin, Saturday, June 15, 2013 in northern Lake Michigan. </span></td></tr>
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Remote Mich. village abuzz over shipwreck search<br />
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JOHN FLESHER<br />
Associated Press<br />
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FAIRPORT, Mich. — Commercial fisherman Larry Barbeau's comings and goings usually don't
create much of a stir in this wind-swept Lake Michigan outpost, but in
the past few days, his phone jangles the minute he arrives home.<br />
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Barbeau's 46-foot boat is the offshore nerve center for an expedition seeking the underwater grave of the Griffin, the first ship of European design to traverse the upper Great Lakes. Built on orders of legendary French explorer Rene Robert Cavelier de la Salle, it ventured from Niagara Falls to Lake Michigan's Green Bay but disappeared during its return in 1679.<br />
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Divers this weekend opened a pit at the base of a wooden beam that juts nearly 11 feet from the lake bottom, believing it could be a section of the vessel, the rest presumably entombed in mud. They picked up the pace Monday with more powerful equipment after a weekend of probing showed that whatever is buried is deeper than sonar readings indicated.<br />
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U.S. and French experts insist it's too early to say whether there's a shipwreck — let alone the Griffin. But anticipation is building at the prospect of solving a maritime puzzle that's more than three centuries old.<br />
<br />
"After we get done for the day, everybody calls or comes to the house and they're like, 'What did you find? What did you see? Can you tell me anything?' " Barbeau said in a Sunday interview aboard his ship, the Viking, which holds crucial expedition equipment, including "umbilical" cables that supply oxygen to divers. "People are really interested and they're excited to see what it is."<br />
<br />
His neighbors aren't the only curious ones. The roughly 40-member expedition team consists of archaeologists, historians, boat pilots, divers, an underwater salvage crew and assorted helpers. When not on the water, they stay in cottages and tents by the lake in the unincorporated village of Fairport, in one of the most remote corners of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.<br />
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Some are relatives or longtime friends of mission chief Steve Libert, who has sought the ship for three decades. While researching the Griffin long ago, Libert ran across Mike Behrens, a Milwaukee sheet-metal worker whose grandfather had searched the lake for chests of gold that legend says smugglers lost during the Civil War.<br />
<br />
"I came up here one year to witness what Steve was doing, and I asked if I could dive with him," said Behrens, 54. "Been doing it ever since. ... I've never met anyone as good at research as him, and he's a very ethical guy. If he says it's the Griffin, I absolutely believe him."<br />
<br />
Others have come aboard more recently, including three archaeologists from France who arrived over the weekend.<br />
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The hands-on excavation work is being handled by a three-man crew from Great Lakes Diving and Salvage, a Michigan company that ordinarily deals with mundane tasks: repairing pumps or scraping zebra mussels off intake pipes.<br />
<br />
"We're basically underwater janitors," said Tom Gouin, vice president of operations. The Griffin, he said, is "like a play job for us. We're loving it."<br />
<br />
The team has had to adjust its strategy, as the excavation is proving to be a bigger-than-expected challenge.<br />
<br />
Sonar scans in years past had suggested that an object similar to the Griffin's reputed size rested about 2 feet beneath the lake floor. But commercial divers found Friday the bottom caked with a thick layer of invasive, fingernail-sized quagga mussel shells.<br />
<br />
After tunneling through mussels, the divers began sucking away gravel and sediments, never hitting anything solid. By Sunday night, the hole reached about 8 feet below the lake bed and it wasn't clear how far down the wooden beam extended or what it might be attached to, said Ken Vrana, the project manager.<br />
<br />
But as more is exposed, the post appears increasingly likely to be part of a ship, said Michel L'Hour, director of France's Department of Underwater Archaeological Research.<br />
<br />
"We never saw a timber standing like this one," he said. "So it's impossible to imagine it otherwise, so one can expect that there is a hull."<br />
<br />
Archaeologists Rob Reedy of Morehead City, N.C., and Misty Jackson of Leslie, Mich., sit on the Viking and sift through material that was found in the sediment, watching for artifacts, from bronze cannons to axes or knives — "anything man-made" that would help identify a ship, Reedy said. Thus far, the only candidate has been a slab of blackened wood about 15 inches long with characteristics suggesting it might have been fashioned by human hands. Its origin remains unknown.<br />
<br />
Visitors inspired by the long-lost ship have drifted into the area during the search, including a 9-year-old who wrote a school paper about the Griffin and men in period costumes and handmade canoes who in 1976 re-enacted la Salle's journey across the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River.<br />
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Carl Behrend, a folk singer and self-described "pretty-soon major movie star" who lives 90 minutes north on Lake Superior, performed an impromptu concert outside the food tent Sunday night. He said he's composing a song about the Griffin.<br />
<br />
"It's rattling around in my head," he said.Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-75591391198484872182013-05-31T07:37:00.001-07:002013-05-31T07:38:02.345-07:00Coral triangle is the global center of marine biodiversity<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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The coral triangle is universally recognized as the “global
center of marine biodiversity” and “the Amazon of the seas.”</div>
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It is fair to say that most of the Earth’s saltwater species
that exist in today’s oceans owe their ancestry to ancient residents of the
triangle. Now part of the South Pacific, the coral triangle was once a
landlocked lake that formed during the Ice Age when massive blocks of ice
sucked up the surrounding water, and land masses appeared from the ocean
bottom. When the ice melted, the land was once again covered by water, and the
species of the coral triangle propagated first east and west along the equator
and then north and south.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/NGuUjTPGR2s?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Today, the triangle sits roughly in the tropical marine
waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon
Islands and Timor-Leste. All of it sits directly north of Australia. It covers
5.7 million square kilometers of ocean waters. The triangle is home to at least
500 species of reef-building corals and more than 3,000 species of fish,
including the world’s largest fish – the whale shark – and the coelacanth.
There are more species of coral, fish and crustaceans in the triangle than
there are at any other location in the world.</div>
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But perhaps the most interesting thing about the triangle is
the multitude of yet undiscovered, or, more accurately, scientifically
unclassified wildlife that can still be discovered there today. All one has to
do is dip below the surface of the water, and they can feast their eyes on an
animal that would leave scientists dumfounded.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You can see things that you’ve never seen before, and
possibly things that are new to science that have never been described before,”
said Rudy Whitworth who visited part of the coral triangle at Raja Ampat in
Indonesia. He spoke about the coral triangle at this year’s Great Lakes
Shipwreck Festival.</div>
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Whitworth, a member of The Ford Seahorses Scuba Diving Club,
which sponsors the festival, said he filmed eight or nine undescribed species,
including two that are likely brand new to science: a triple-fin blenny and a
species of nudibranch.</div>
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“When I went to my experts, the doctorates that do the
assigning, the scientists, they said ‘I have definitely never seen this one
before.’ That’s really special.”</div>
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The uniqueness of the coral triangle is rooted in its role
during the Ice Age. As ice cover grew from north and south polar ice caps,
global temperatures dropped, and most warm-water species around the globe died.
As the ice converged on the triangle area near the equator, the ice sucked up
huge volumes of water and the ocean bottom suddenly became a land mass. The
triangle area became land-locked and the warm-water species survived due to
their comparatively warm location near the equator. Once the Ice Age ended, the
ice melted and that ocean bottom was covered with water once again. But the
result was the only warm-water species left were those located in the coral
triangle.</div>
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“They have had longer to evolve. Therefore, there are more
species there. So when the ice melted and the water came up, the species that
were contained in this area actually went out and propagated all around the
equator. And then they started working up and down. So the further you get away
from this coral triangle, the fewer species you have. In terms of evolution,
they have had less time to evolve.”</div>
Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-51678753362327554632013-05-14T07:32:00.002-07:002013-05-14T07:36:31.915-07:00Michigan's copper mining history starts well before the birth of ChristMichigan’s Upper Peninsula has been known as “copper country” for hundreds of years.<br />
More specifically, the peninsula’s northwest corner, Copper Harbor, Ontonagon and Eagle Harbor, all part of the Keweenaw Peninsula, at one time were bustling areas of copper mining.<br />
But did you know copper was first mined in our state thousands of years before the birth of Christ? Before the Egyptian pyramids? Before Stonehenge?<br />
Scientists believe copper was first mined in the Upper Peninsula between 3,000-7,000 years ago, or about 5,000-1,200 B.C. During that time, it is estimated 1.5 billion pounds of copper was mined by an unknown civilization.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dy_lddITPs9jnWXSYW0r46jQ4KlSrQ7XDDZh9xuJ4wbmsD8GIzEHcyv9JPxInFqiubqzQ5eS1F-MB5k93HYQg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>These people left behind no burial grounds, no dwellings, no pottery or cave drawings. What they did leave behind was thousands of copper producing pits and thousands of crude hammering stones to work the pits. They would alternately use fire and cold water to break copper bearing rock into smaller pieces and then extract the metal with hammer stones.<br />
Because copper is a malleable metal, it was easily shaped and durable. It would be turned into tools, arrows and spearheads, as well as jewelry.<br />
But most of the estimated 1.5 billion pounds of copper mined by these ancient people is no longer in the Upper Peninsula. Where did it go? How was it transported? The pure copper of the Lake Superior region has been found in prehistoric cultures throughout North and South America.<br />
“This is the controversial area of the copper story,” said Luke Clyburn of the Noble Odyssey Foundation, which released its latest documentary, “America’s Ancient Industry” on copper mining in the U.P. “The amount of effort that it took to mine, to be able to travel to Isle Royle, to travel to Keweenaw, there had to be an economic payback.<br />
“It was an industry,” Clyburn continued. “These people were looking at how to exchange it, maybe not for money, but for a commodity that they needed.”<br />
Some experts estimate it would have required 10,000 men 1,000 years to mine the 1.5 billion pounds of copper and develop the extensive operations carried on throughout the region. Others say those numbers are high.<br />
Regardless of the numbers, what often goes unnoticed or forgotten is that these ancient, unknown peoples had far more intelligence than they are given credit for.<br />
“Were they just hunters and gatherers? I don’t think so. I think these people were pretty smart,” Clyburn said. “They knew how to make tools, and they shipped these materials wherever they could and exchange it for commodities that would make it worth their effort.<br />
“They could travel and get back home again. That took a pretty high level of sophistication and navigation. All of that industry created some pretty sharp people.”<br />
Schoolchildren are taught Christopher Columbus discovered America. But that is the Anglo-Saxon history. This region has a rich history developed long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. It’s just that so much of it remains a mystery.<br />
“There was clearly a lot of connection with other continents. Maybe it was exploration, maybe it was in search for food, maybe it was an expedition for copper,” Clyburn said. “People traveled back and forth long before what we see in history.”<br />
<br />
To purchase Clyburn’s full “America’s Ancient Industry” documentary, go to www.nobleodyssey.org or call Clyburn at 248-666-9359. A $25 donation is to the foundation is required.Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-14117038477689136862013-05-08T11:57:00.001-07:002013-05-13T08:35:13.047-07:00Ships only become famous after they sink<br />
Most of the time, ships that ply the Great Lakes do so in anonymity.
<br />
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It’s only when some tragedy befalls them that their name and
their service record become history for the rest of the world to learn about.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Edmund Fitzgerald was just another ship carrying iron
ore through the Great Lakes until it famously sank in 1975 in Lake Superior.
Singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot took it on a rocket ride to legendary
status.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even the Titanic, perhaps the most famous shipwreck of all
time, would have been just another luxury steamer until it sunk in the
mid-Atlantic in 1912. Sure, at the time it was lauded as one of the biggest,
fastest, most luxurious ships ever made. But a lifetime of safe, comfortable
ocean crossings would have surely helped it vanish into a mere footnote of history.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dywd6suk-vY8JslwYrp9oRwsQdmsSEqyiBVH_p-KnxPwpLTU0rjrp05HVdT2564CngEUuphBUs15izO2YwRkg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Valerie van Heest of Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates,
an award-winning author and filmmaker from Holland, Mich., spoke about how
ships become famous at a presentation titled “Lost and Found – Legendary
Wrecks” at the 32<sup>nd</sup> Great Lakes Shipwrecks Festival.</div>
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“The fact is we learn more about the ship from the discovery
of the wreck and the evolution of diving rather than the incident that put the
ship on the bottom,” van Heest said.</div>
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Archeologically, van Heest said, we can study artifacts and
personal objects left in the vessels after they have foundered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can learn more about the crew on board than
simply a list of the names of those who perished. She described one vessel she
dived in which she found personal objects, such as a crew member’s sock with a
hole in it, indicating the man wasn’t well-to-do and couldn’t afford new socks.
She’s found ships with an array of coins inside from various Scandinavian
countries that provide a window into the geographic makeup of the crew.</div>
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“These are tremendous artifacts that speak to us by allowing
us to study them,” van Heest said.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, shipwrecks owe
their survival in large part to relatively new state and federal regulations
enacted to protect them from scavengers and treasure hunters looking to either
remove things from the ships or lift the vessel itself out of the water
altogether.</div>
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In 1987, the Abandoned Shipwreck Act was introduced in
Congress and signed into federal law in 1988. That law mandated that each state
write its own laws to protect shipwrecks and turned <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>over ownership of the wrecks from the federal
government to individual state governments.</div>
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In Michigan, for example, the Aboriginal Records and
Antiquities and Abandoned Property <span class="Title1">statute, which includes
the Natural Resources and Environment Protection Act which protects shipwrecks,
only became law in 1994. That law updated legislation that had been enacted in
the state in the late 1970s but was not as comprehensive in scope.</span></div>
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<span class="Title1">Prior to that, anyone who had the
wherewithal to lift a wreck, and the money to pay for it, simply had to obtain
the salvage rights. Prior to the writing of the Shipwreck Act, “looting was
standard practice by divers, including myself,” van Heest said. But doing so
would gut the wreck of important artifacts, and bringing it to the surface
would almost certainly spell an end to the vessel.</span></div>
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<span class="Title1">Van Heest cited as an example the case of
the Alvin Clark, a ship that went down in Green Bay, Wis., in 1864. In 1969, a
team headed by scuba diver Frank Hoffman lifted the Alvin Clark from the bottom
of the bay in what was considered an extraordinary event that was praised by
the government, the press and the public alike. The ship was designated a
Michigan State Historic Site in 1972 and was listed on</span> the National
Register of Historic Places in 1974.</div>
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The ship was raised legally in extraordinary condition,
completely intact and actually floated once water was removed from its holds.
It quickly became a tourist attraction after Hoffman built a museum nearby and
exhibited the ship as a tourist attraction at the "Mystery Ship
Seaport" in Menominee, Mich.</div>
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But neither Hoffman nor its crew accounted for the environmental
damage the ship would suffer out of the water – from weather, wind, extreme hot
and cold temperatures – much different conditions from the cold, low-oxygen
environment at the bottom of Green Bay.</div>
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The ship quickly began to deteriorate, decayed and started
to fall apart. Hoffman had neither the expertise nor the money to restore the
Alvin Clark. His search for grants to pay for repairs fell upon deaf ears.</div>
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Finally, in 1994, the same year shipwreck protection was updated
in Michigan, the ship was considered beyond saving and deemed a hazard. The
Alvin Clark, one of the oldest merchant ships to ply the Great Lakes, with its
origins in 1847, was bulldozed and lost to history. And everyone involved
learned a valuable lesson. According to van Heest, states across the country
were influenced by the story of the Alvin Clark and used it as an example of
what could go wrong while authoring their own legislation.</div>
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<b>They don’t make them like that anymore</b></div>
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Thanks to improving side-scan sonar technology, van Heest
believes all existing shipwrecks will be found in the next 15-20 years. In
addition, she said it will take at least another 100 years before time and
zebra mussels break down the oldest shipwrecks and turn them into a pile of
planks. But fortunately, van Heest’s research has shown the older the shipwreck
is, the better it’s made.</div>
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Remember how your parents would constantly complain things
aren’t built the way they used to be? Well, according to van Heest, that also
applies to shipwreck building nearly 200 years ago.</div>
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Not only are ships that sit in deeper water better preserved
due to colder temperatures and less environmental activity, but older ships, in
van Heest’s experience, were simply made better.</div>
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“In the heyday of the schooners in the 1870s-‘80s, they were
cranking these things out, and I don’t think they were all that well built
compared to the ones built in the early 1800s,” she said. “Back then, they
weren’t as plentiful, and they were building them better.”<br />
To learn more about legendary Lake Michigan shipwrecks, check out van Heest's book, titled "Lost & Found Legendary Lake Michigan Shipwrecks" <a href="http://www.in-deptheditions.com/Lost&FoundLegendaryLakeMichiganShipwrecks.html">by clicking here.</a> </div>
Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-88798478999928013532013-04-29T09:15:00.001-07:002013-04-29T09:15:48.040-07:00Rebreather opens up a whole new level of scuba diving<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
Like many divers, Mike Lynch anticipated his venture into
the great blue beyond following his open water certification would be peaceful,
serene and quiet.
<br />
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Well, two outta three ain’t bad.</div>
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While scuba diving is peaceful and serene, it’s not always
quiet, thanks to the never-ending pulse of expelled breaths and the resulting
bubbles escaping past the diver’s ear. Breathing air in from a pressurized tank
and expelling used air into the water column has always been a part of diving
in general and scuba diving in particular.</div>
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But for serious divers, and those with both the skills and
the disposable income, rebreathers offer a panacea of underwater enjoyment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the past year, Lynch, a diving friend of mine who works
with Bruno’s Dive Shop in Clinton Township and Titan Dive Group, became a
certified rebreather diver, and the stories he has to tell are amazing.
Four-hour cave dives with an average depth of 120 feet and such quiet
tranquility that he can hear the water moving around in the cave system and
rocks cracking on each other as they roll around in moving water. Fish swimming
right up to his mask to see their reflection because they aren’t scared away by
expelled bubbles. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/pp3dbvobvwQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe>“It brings you into a whole new world of diving,” Lynch
said.</div>
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Lynch, repping Titan at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival
in March, gave me an up-close and personal explanation of how the rebreather
works.</div>
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In the most basic terms, the rebreather uses two tanks, one
containing pure oxygen, and the other containing regular air used as “filler.”
Each tank is smaller than a traditional scuba tank. With each breath, the used
air is recirculated using a scrubber to remove the carbon dioxide, and
additional oxygen is added to the “filler” air. The system is constantly
evaluating the user’s gas needs based not only upon their own metabolic rate,
but also things like the dive depth. According to Lynch, it creates a perfect
nitrox mix for the entire dive.</div>
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It is a much, much more efficient way to use gas, since it
is all recycled and reused. A typical “open circuit” scuba unit, with expelled
bubbles, wastes a significant amount of oxygen. In a typical breath, only about
4-5 percent of the oxygen is used, and the rest is expelled into the water. With
a rebreather, that unused oxygen is pushed back in the system and mixed with
the filler air and oxygen. Lynch said that during his four-hour cave dive at an
average of 120 feet, he only used eight cubic feet of oxygen.</div>
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While the idea and the concept of rebreathers have been
around for more than 200 years, mass-produced recreational rebreathers have
only been around for a little more than 20 years. The last 10-15 years have
seen significant technological advancement.</div>
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Nevertheless, cost remains an issue. Lynch said a diver
looking to get into rebreather technology can expect to spend about $10,000 for
the equipment, the training and the gas to get started.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the video above is my interview with Mike Lynch and our discussion about rebreathers.</div>
Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-77768664733178372952013-04-22T06:59:00.000-07:002013-04-22T07:00:08.892-07:00State police trooper recounts Cessna crash in Lake Michigan in which two people were trapped in the back seat<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Michigan State Police Sgt. Bill House admits he has seen a
lot and “been in a lot of bad places” in his 13 years as a member of the
force’s underwater rescue and recovery unit.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">But one incident still gets to him and chokes him up nearly
three years after it occurred: That is the case of a Cessna 206 that crashed in
Lake Michigan about four miles off the coast of Ludington on the morning of
July 23, 2010. The crash killed four of the five passengers. But it was the way
that two of the victims were killed that House acknowledges bothers him to this
day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">“I think of it now and the thought of them and what went on,
yeah, it still bothers me. I can still see their faces as clear as the day it
happened,” House said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The tragic story began on July 23, 2010, when pilot Jerry
Freed, co-pilot Earl Davidson, medical doctor James Hall, cancer patient Donald
Pavlik, who was superintendent of the Alma Public Schools, and his wife Irene
set out on a flight from Ludington to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.,
where Pavlik was to receive cancer treatment. The aircraft developed engine
trouble, eventually determined to be a faulty fuel filter. The pilot turned
around in the hopes of making it back to Ludington. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">They never made it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">The aircraft crashed into the lake that morning. While
attempting to land the plane in the lake, the pilot lowered the flaps to flare
the plane out. The Cessna hit the water, the engine was ripped off, and the
fuselage flipped upside down. The pilots and the doctor, who were all sitting
in the front seat, got out. Pavlik and his wife remained inside. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because the flaps were locked into their
extended position, blocking the rear door, they were prevented from opening it.
The flaps couldn’t be moved because the engine was ripped off the plane.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">“They were basically trapped in the plane,” House said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Six days later, Sgt. House and his dive team’s side-scan
sonar s made contact with the plane, finding it in 173 feet of water, about
three to four miles from the shore between Big Sable Point and Ludington harbor.
The Pavliks were still in the back seat -- Don Pavlik still strapped in his
seat belt, Irene Pavik resting on his lap.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">“It looked like he was hugging her. And it looked like she
was trying to get the door open,” House said, his voice choking at the memory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">House and his dive team were actually fairly close to the
accident scene when the plane went down. Normally based in Coldwater, House and
other rescue team divers were training in Rodgers City when they got the call
and immediately headed toward Ludington. They gathered information from the ELT
(emergency locator transmitter) that was activated when the plane hit water.
Within six hours of the plane going down, the dive team was on the water,
setting up a square-mile perimeter grid around the beacon and began side-scan
sonar searching. The search came up empty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">The team headed back to shore, talked to a charter boat
captain who had seen the plane go down, looked at the FAA flight path that had
been recorded prior to the plane dropping below radar and received information
from the pilot, who had been picked up by a nearby boat. The team went back out
and set up a two-square-mile grid with two crews working 24-hour shifts in an
attempt to locate the aircraft. In addition to the difficult environment, the
search was hampered by the sonar equipment becoming tangled in commercial
fishing nets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Finally, in the early evening hours of July 29, the crew
found the plane upright on the bottom of the lake and the engine nearby. The
first recovery dive took place at 7:20 p.m. That’s when divers found the
Pavlik’s bodies still seated inside the plane and the reason why they couldn’t
open the rear door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following
morning, the dive team cut the flap actuator rod that held the flaps in the
open position and recovered Irene Pavlik. The resulting silt from removing Mrs.
Pavlik left zero visibility. That, combined with floating luggage, entangled
medical equipment, the width of the diver’s double tanks and the narrowness of
the doorway made it impossible to remove Mr. Pavlik. He was recovered later
that day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">On July 31, Dr. James Hall was recovered nearby the plane,
and on Aug. 1, Earl Davidson’s body was recovered, also near the plane.
Presumably, both men drowned sometime after exiting the plane. Only the pilot
survived the accident.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">It was the deepest recovery dive since the inception of the
Michigan State Police underwater rescue unit in 1957, and House’s deepest
personal dive. It was also fraught with difficulty, dealing with the
environment, the lack of visibility, the wind and the waves and its location so
far offshore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">But as is the nature of his job, each day has its rewards
and its heartbreak.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">“It’s one of those bittersweet things. I love diving. I love
state police diving and the recovery work because somebody’s got to do it,”
House said. “I’ve been told ‘this is a gravesite, shouldn’t you leave it
alone?’ But people want their loved ones back, and so that’s part of it you
feel good about. You are excited when you got them out of the plane, but it’s
also very tragic.”</span></div>
Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-49334657236401694922013-04-10T07:32:00.001-07:002013-05-15T08:46:40.927-07:00Alpena-Amberley land bridge reveals more evidence of prehistoric caribou hunting from 100 feet below the surface of Lake Huron<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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led a study of the Alpena-Amberley ridge, a 72-square mile post-Ice Age land
bridge that once connected what is now Michigan’s northeastern Lower Peninsula
near Alpena, with Point Clark in southwest Ontario about 9,000 years ago.
Today, that ridge sits 100 feet below the water line at the bottom of Lake
Huron.</div>
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In the 3-1/2 years his team has been studying the area, it
has found compelling evidence that both caribou and mastodon used the ridge as
a semi-annual migration path, and that humans, categorized as Paleoindian and
Early Archaic hunters, devised ways to hunt and kill the animals on the ridge.
But a skeptical colleague, that’s right, the one bearing the gift of Scotch,
won’t be convinced until the group finds an arrowhead or a spearpoint, thereby
in his mind confirming O’Shea’s theory.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/rOoaYhpzN4Q?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe>“I want to be out there until I find that spearhead and I
can open that bottle of Lagavulin,” O’Shea said with a laugh. “We’ve convinced
a lot of skeptical critics that this probably is what was going on. The dates
(carbon dating of wood poles found to be about 9,000 years old) are coming in,
the simulation is working. Science is incremental, you’re always adding things
together. But the pieces are falling together in a really nice way. So I’m very
enthusiastic about this summer’s work that we will collect even more stuff.”</div>
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O’Shea has been a frequent visitor at the annual Great Lakes
Shipwreck Festival, and once again spoke to a packed room, updating listeners
on scientific findings in 2012.</div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">On older nautical charts, the area including the ridge is labeled as the
Six Fathom Shoal, and it once divided the Lake Huron basin into two distinct
lakes, the largest of which is called Lake Stanley. Scientists believe the
ridge exists because it is composed of limestones and dolomites, materials so
hard that even the mighty glaciers that destroyed everything their path
couldn’t cut into it. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">While the ridge area includes the prehistoric Lake Stanley, Lake
Chippewa, the forerunner to Lake Michigan sat to the west. Prior to the ice
melt that eventually covered the Alpena-Amberly ridge, those two lakes did not
connect at the Straits of Mackinac like they do today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jdpLucK_z9o/UWWK73Kkx9I/AAAAAAAAAFs/aFP6_7m3WvA/s1600/alpena+amberley+ridge+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="188" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jdpLucK_z9o/UWWK73Kkx9I/AAAAAAAAAFs/aFP6_7m3WvA/s320/alpena+amberley+ridge+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A computer rendering of the Alpena-Amberley land ridge, a 75-square mile ridge that once connected Michigan's Lower Peninsula to southwest Ontario. The green area represents the current water line of Lake Huron.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In years past, the team had found wooden poles, perhaps used
to hang meat, that date to about 9,000 years ago. They found stone structures
probably used as hunting blinds, caches or pits and “drive lanes” made by a
linear path of rocks that would bring the animals close enough that hunters
could attack them with spears and lances.</div>
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In 2012, the team discovered additional wood samples,
potential fireplaces, charcoal, and in core samples flakeage or micro-debitage,
stone microfragments made when chipping away at stone or rock to make tools,
weapons or other implements. The microfragments are determined to be manmade
since the way they are shaped couldn’t have happened naturally. The team is
also transitioning from discovering artifacts to determining how the people of
that time period lived. </div>
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Since it was during the post-Ice Age time period, the
climate was milder than the Ice Age, but still bitterly cold with miserable
conditions along the ridge. Those "warmer" conditions were comparably pleasant
for the caribou and their thick hides. The subarctic tundra would have had
developing grass areas, intermittent marshes and a scatter of coniferous trees,
while the water’s edge would have provided various types of vegetation. The
windy conditions would have given them relief from flies that bothered them during the warmer
seasons. As for the hunters, the confined nature of the ridge would have
provided a substantial element of predictability regarding herd movement which
would have been of great value to them.</div>
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“These people probably lived in the Lower Peninsula, closer
to the middle of the modern-day lake since the lakes were so much shallower
then,” O’Shea said. “They probably only came out to the ridge to hunt. Maybe
they would come out by sled in the winter to retrieve the meat that had been
cached from the fall hunt.”</div>
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While many of the hunting blinds at the bottom of Lake Huron
are set up to attack caribou moving in both migrational directions (southeast
in the autumn to rut and northwest in the spring to calve) some are V-shaped,
giving the impression that they would work for movement in only one direction.
Based upon which direction they are facing, scientists can determine whether
they were used for fall or spring migration. In addition, some blinds are
minimal, suggesting their location didn’t work, while other blinds are more
extensive and updated, indicating they are in better locations and fortified to
allow for more hunters.</div>
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“A number of the structures are located on high ground at
the break of the crest of a hill, so that the animals coming up the hill don’t
really see (the hunters) until they are upon them,” O’Shea said. “They did
things that make a lot of sense to a modern hunter’s eye.”</div>
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As for the final smoking guns, such as large pieces of bone
or spear or arrowheads that would remove all doubt of hunting activity on the
ridge, O’Shea said large or macro bone pieces almost certainly have dissolved
over time. The microbone fragments that have been found were discovered in core
drilling samples. Larger pieces of bone would only be found in holes or caches
within the limestone.</div>
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The spear or arrowheads are still on the agenda and will
hopefully be discovered, if only so O’Shea can uncork his whiskey. </div>
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When asked
if his team has made enough discoveries to certainly prove the existence of
hunting on the ridge, his answer is one you may expect of a scientist.</div>
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“We’ve gone a long way towards ‘certainly,’ but I wouldn’t
say absolutely … yet,” he said.</div>
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This summer, O’Shea’s team has plans to look for additional
campsites, devise better means of collecting bulk sediment samples and search
for cultural debris, expand the search to natural migration choke points and
expand acoustic coverage.</div>
Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-57131220481049078582013-04-04T13:15:00.001-07:002013-04-04T13:19:35.348-07:00A new way to look at gas consumption using rock bottom: Why simply planning to surface with 500psi isn’t the best way to manage air<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<i><span style="font-size: small;">This article was provided to me by James Mott
of Unified Team Diving and Sea The World Scuba Center. I met James at the Great Lakes Shipwreck
Festival in which he spoke on the topic of gas management. James shared the
concept of “rock bottom” in which divers determine when is the best time to
begin an ascent from the deepest part of the dive to allow for a safe reserve
of 500 psi when reaching the surface. Also check out the video interview I did
with James at the festival.</span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">By James Mott</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Throughout the world, divers are told again
and again to return to the boat with 300-500 psi in their tanks.
Understandably, most competent divers stretch their bottom time out as long as
they can. They smile as they show their pressure gauges to the dive
master upon surfacing and then compare gauges with other divers in order to see
who the closest one to 301psi is. Getting the most bottom time underwater
is a fun game to play with buddies and I’m not saying that divers shouldn’t use
as much of their tanks as possible. However the question becomes, “Is
this the smartest way to plan gas?” What exactly is the goal of leaving some
air in our tanks? To help a buddy in need, to keep water out of our tanks,
to inflate our BCD’s at the surface? Many divers use the 1/3’s rule, but
even this plan has numerous flaws. So where do we start? Is there a
plan that works for deep-diving technical divers and shallow-water recreational
divers alike? What is wrong with the idea of surfacing with a safe amount
of gas, like 500psi?</span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/dVsrHNil-wg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><span style="font-size: small;">The answer to the 500psi problem is that
being on the surface at the end of the dive with 500psi does not answer the
more important question for scuba divers, which is, “When do I have to leave
the bottom? If we have an emergency and we need to share air, “How much
air will I need to bring me and my buddy to the surface safely? This is
the question that should start all gas planning.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Doing It Right (DIR) education teaches the
unified team to plan for the worst possible emergency before the dive
starts. We always ask the question, “What happens if at the worst
possible moment, the deepest part of the dive, the furthest distance from home…
my buddy runs out of air… How much gas do I need to bring both of us to the
surface without any incident?”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Calculating rock bottom is easy enough to do
in your head before the dive and it is taught in all entry level DIR
courses. How long will the ascent take, multiplied by two divers, then by
the average depth and then by a consumption rate, equals rock bottom. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Rock bottom is calculated by adding
up the time it would take to ascend from a given depth. For example, from
60 feet, we would normally ascend at 30 feet/minute and have a three-minute
safety stop. This normal ascent would take us four minutes. We then
add one minute for the air-sharing emergency to take place and have a
five-minute ascent, requiring 10 minutes of total air with two divers breathing
during that 5 minute time frame. We assume we have an elevated breathing
rate of about 1 cubic foot/minute. Our average depth during the ascent is
about 30 feet or 2 ATA (atmospheric pressure one ATA is atmospheric pressure at
sea level) where we consume gas at twice the surface rate.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">SCUBA Math</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">5 minutes X 2 divers X 1 cfm X 2 ATA
= 20 cubic feet of gas</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">20 cf of gas on an AL 80 is about
750 psi.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Rock Bottom for 60 FSW on an AL80 is
750 or for most gauges, 800 psi.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Rock Bottom for 100FSW on an AL 80
is 1600psi. (Math is not provided but can be, just ask.)</span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Once rock bottom is determined, the remainder
of the useable gas is then divided into a logical plan. Maybe it is a
drift dive on a Caribbean reef where we can use everything. Maybe we are diving
on a shipwreck in the Great Lakes and need to get back to the mooring line, or
we might be doing a penetration on this shipwreck where we will need enough gas
to get out of the wreck plus enough to get to the surface. Different
dives will require different gas plans, but rock bottom must always be
accounted for, before the gas plan is made. DIR education teaches the
unified team to plan their gas in accordance for the specific dive, so that
each diver can get the most fun possible out of their diving and still be safe.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Being at depth below rock bottom is
irresponsible and will not give us enough air to safely ascend. The only
emergency underwater is running out of gas, everything else is just an
inconvenience. Once the out of gas diver is breathing again, we move from
emergency to management. Just because someone ran out of air, does not
mean that we rush to the surface, exceed safe ascent rates, skip safety/deco
stops, or anything else we know about safe diving protocols. The only
option is to remain calm, think, communicate and finish the dive.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">For more information about rock bottom or
other gas management options, contact me at <a href="mailto:jm@unifiedteamdiving.com">jm@unifiedteamdiving.com</a> or <a href="http://www.unifiedteamdiving.com/">www.unifiedteamdiving.com</a> or Sea The World Scuba Center in Farmington Hills at 248-478-6400.</span>Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-91571934809403433692013-03-28T12:35:00.000-07:002013-03-28T13:01:19.191-07:00Diving with whale sharks in the Philippines<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">To me, one of the greatest reasons for scuba diving is the
chance to see animals that inhabit the wet part of the Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">About three quarters of the Earth’s surface is water, but
only a small percentage of people have the skills, i.e. scuba diving skills, get
to spend large amounts of time under the water exploring creatures that live
their lives in that environment.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’ve seen everything from large animals – sharks, turtles,
eagle rays, pilot whales, for example, to smaller ones, such as shrimp, sea horses
and nudibranches. Every dive is different, and every dive opens a window to
seeing something you’ve never seen before.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/XytG8wPM8W8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">For me, nothing gets the heart racing like seeing a large
pelagic – a shark or a whale, for example, that just happen to be passing
through at the same time you are there. That’s why seeing a whale shark up
close and personal sits very close to the top of my bucket list.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Whale sharks are so large, quite often more than 40 feet
long, that they can look intimidating. But looks can be deceiving. These gentle
giants are no more of a threat to humans than a common ant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whale sharks are not only the largest fish species on earth,
they are also <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">the largest living
non-mammalian vertebrate, rivaling many of the largest dinosaurs in weight. The
largest ever recorded are more than 21.5 metric tons, or about 47,000 pounds.
They are a filter-feeding fish, consuming primary macro-algae, plankton, krill
and Christmas Island red crab. They live to be about 70 years old.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Tony Gramer, a
regular speaker at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival and the Dossin Great
Lakes Museum, recently gave a speech on diving in the Philippines. The location was Dumaguete City, near Manila. During that
trip he happened to have a chance to dive (actually snorkel) with</span><span lang="EN"> </span>whale sharks. After I turned green with envy, I caught up with
Gramer to have him tell me about that incredible experience. That conversation
is in the video above.<o:p></o:p></span></span>Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-11287685601204403162013-03-21T09:37:00.000-07:002013-03-26T07:26:02.588-07:00Great Lakes Storm of 1913 destroyed 19 ships, killed 251 sailors<span style="font-family: Calibri;">While the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior in
1975 may be the most famous shipwreck on the Great Lakes, the storm that caused
it pales in comparison to the granddaddy of weather fury: The Great Lakes Storm
of 1913.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This November will mark the 100<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> anniversary of
the most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the lakes, which took place
over five days in November 1913. The storm killed 251 sailors, destroyed 19
ships and damaged 19 others plying four of the five Great Lakes. Lake Ontario
was the only lake that escaped damage.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/T141AQv0lYI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jim and Pat Stayer, owners of Out of the Blue Productions
out of Lexington, discussed the topic at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival in
Ann Arbor.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“The 1913 storm was the biggest ever on the Great Lakes,”
Jim Stayer said. “They had storms in 1869, 1905, 1940 (The Armistice Day
storm), but nothing was the equal to this storm. Two low-pressure systems met
and produced 90 mile per hour winds for more than four hours.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“If you think about the size of the waves that weekend, you
would stand at the bottom of a telephone poll and you would look up, and the
waves were 10-feet higher than that,” added Pat Stayer. “That’s why most of the
wrecks from the 1913 storm are turtled and upside down (at the bottom of the
lake).”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The storm is historically referred to as the “Big Blow,” the
“Freshwater Fury,” or the “White Hurricane.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Described as an extratropical cyclone, it originated as the
convergence of two major storm fronts, one heading southeast across Lake
Superior, and other heading northeast from Colorado. Although the storm went
from Nov. 6-11, a lull in the storm, called a “sucker hole,” prompted ships to
begin heading out again. Most of the ship destruction occurred on Nov. 9.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“They did forecast the storm, but weather forecasting had
just started out,” Jim said. “And shipmasters were under pressure to make one
more last run for the season. There was a little lull as the two pressures were
meeting, and they got sucked out into it and that was the worst part of the storm,
particularly on Lake Huron.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9hXvUfL0C0A/UVGuiE3YGgI/AAAAAAAAAFU/gWxd2l0VTxk/s1600/Great+Storm+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9hXvUfL0C0A/UVGuiE3YGgI/AAAAAAAAAFU/gWxd2l0VTxk/s320/Great+Storm+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration by Robert McGreevy<br />
This painting is based upon an eyewitness account of the Argus falling into a trough between giant waves. The eyewitness, the captain of a nearby ship, said when that happened, the Argus “crumpled like an eggshell.” The Argus sank near the tip of the Thumb in Lake Huron, losing 28 sailors.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N_twzuuCDWo/UVGvlACIltI/AAAAAAAAAFc/URyAQeRfDLM/s1600/Great+Storm+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N_twzuuCDWo/UVGvlACIltI/AAAAAAAAAFc/URyAQeRfDLM/s320/Great+Storm+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration by Robert McGreevy<br />
This painting illustrates the Issac M. Scott cutting through waves during the storm. The Scott was lost near Thunder Bay, killing all 28 aboard.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In addition to the tremendous waves and winds, the ships
caught in the storm also accumulated a large amount of ice buildup, 5-6 inches
on the rails and the upper structures, which helped speed their demise.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of the 12 ships that sank during the storm, eight were lost
on Lake Huron alone. Those ships included two ships that still have not been
found -- the Hydrus, which lost 25 crew, and the James Carruthers, which had 22
victims. Those two ships are presumed to be on the Canadian side of Lake Huron
in deeper water, and searching for them would require special permits. The
other ships found in Lake Huron include: the Charles S. Price (28 victims), the
Regina (20 victims), the Argus (28 victims), and the Wexford (20 victims).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The total financial lost from all the lakes was nearly $5
million, or about $100 million at current value. The lost cargo, totaling about
68 tons, included coal, iron ore and grain.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Price, Regina and Wexford all sit at recreational dive
depth and are popular with scuba divers. The Price, in 64 feet of water and the
Regina, in 80 feet of water are upside down, while the Wexford sits upright in
75 feet of water.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Check out the video above for more from Jim and Pat Stayer about the Great Lakes Storm of 1913.</span><br />
<img height="56" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9hXvUfL0C0A/UVGuiE3YGgI/AAAAAAAAAFU/gWxd2l0VTxk/s320/Great+Storm+2.jpg" style="filter: alpha(opacity=30); left: 162px; opacity: 0.3; position: absolute; top: 666px;" width="96" />Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-47730713486300014932013-03-08T14:42:00.000-08:002014-03-01T14:15:32.708-08:00Aircraft vanishes nearly 36 years ago over land, hasn't been seen since<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For nearly 36 years, the fate of John and Jean Block has
been one of the state’s greatest mysteries.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On July 4, 1977, the couple left Macomb Airport in Macomb County, planning to meet up with one of their sons in northern Michigan to
celebrate the holiday together. Their destination was the Lost Creek Sky Ranch
Airport in Luzerne, MI.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">They never made it. And they haven’t been seen since.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-82f4qPqDYq0/UTpoHmmHI5I/AAAAAAAAAE8/ztnCKwKysfk/s1600/Blocks+resize2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-82f4qPqDYq0/UTpoHmmHI5I/AAAAAAAAAE8/ztnCKwKysfk/s320/Blocks+resize2.jpg" height="320" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jean and John Block</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">They took off in perfect weather conditions at about 11 a.m.
and were never seen again. While the fact that the couple simply vanished is
mysterious, the fact that the plane, which almost certainly crashed on land in
Michigan, has never been found is remarkable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ross Richardson, owner of the michiganmysteries.com website,
believes the couple’s plane went down in the Huron-Manistee National Forest.
While that area of the northern Lower Peninsula is rural and remote, it only
seems logical that someone would stumble across a wrecked plane sometime in the
ensuing 36 years. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Yes, either hiker or hunters. It’s probably in the
Huron-Manistee National Forest, which is a very remote location. And some of
these areas probably haven’t been seen since they were logged 100 years ago,”
Richardson said, who spoke on the subject at the 32<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">nd</span></sup> Great Lakes
Shipwreck Festival in Ann Arbor on March 2 while discussing the topic “Michigan
Mystery Disappearances.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Block, the longtime fire chief at U.S. Army TACOM, was a
resident of East Detroit, now Eastpointe. He had earned his pilot’s license in
1947 after serving in World War II. He didn’t have an extraordinary amount of
flight time, maybe 470 hours, (about 200-300 after 1970) but was rated as a
stunt pilot and would practice barrel rolls and other stunt maneuvers along
with safety procedures.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“That was our entertainment as kids,” said his son, John Jr.
“Other kids would go on vacation. We would head out to the airport and go for a
ride and have our dad scare the heck out of us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">John Jr., a retired sheriff’s deputy in Grand Traverse
County, said his dad wasn’t instrument rated, so he would use road maps and
would follow major highways to get to his destination. And while his fateful
flight may have been one of his longest trips, he had been doing more
“cross-country” type flights and had flown to Traverse City three or four
times.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The flight left at that morning with perfect flying
conditions. The Blocks had planned to meet up with their son Mike and his
family in Luzerne in the early afternoon. When they didn’t show up, Mike called
John Jr. in Traverse City to see if they had gone there instead. When a missing
person’s report was filed, search parties began an exhaustive search that
wouldn’t bear fruit. An FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) investigation was
launched.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_EBM-bXt6rs/UTpot-ya0KI/AAAAAAAAAFE/cmhIjDEIQ78/s1600/Cessna+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_EBM-bXt6rs/UTpot-ya0KI/AAAAAAAAAFE/cmhIjDEIQ78/s320/Cessna+4.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Block's 1969 Cessna 150 (Photos courtesy of John Block Jr.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">John Jr., then 31 and active as a sheriff’s deputy, aided in
the search, often getting down on his hands and knees, combing the ground
looking for evidence. He and his wife spent the next 10-15 years scouring the
suspected crash zone with fliers and posters pleading for any information or
eyewitnesses that might help them find the downed plane. They followed tips
that ended with dead ends.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">They sought the help of psychics, who told them the aircraft
went down in a swampy area in the Isabella Indian Reservation in Isabella
County near Mount Pleasant. Eventually, all trails ran cold.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Macomb County Probate Court issued death certificates for
John and Jean Block in April 1978. The family held a memorial service on July
24, 1978, a little more than a year after they disappeared.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">John Jr., now 66, believes one of two things happened that
caused his parents to crash their 1969 Cessna 150: First, they ran into bad
weather that moved into the northern Lower Peninsula that afternoon and early
evening. But the weather would have only been a factor if the couple got lost
and their flight time extended by a couple of hours. Second, John Block, 57,
had some kind of medical emergency. His mom, Jean, 55, did not like flying and
didn’t know how to pilot the plane. He doubts it was a mechanical failure.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“It was a pretty reliable plane, with not many hours on it,”
John said. “My dad suffered from diabetes and high-blood pressure. I was really
surprised he passed his last couple of annual physicals.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The flight path, north of West Branch, is indeed some of the
most remote, uninhabited and swampy locations in all of the Lower Peninsula.
The Mio and Huron Shores districts of the Huron-Manistee are in the area, and,
despite the fact that they are public lands, they don’t get an overwhelming
amount of foot traffic. And in such a thickly wooded area, the Cessna would
have been ripped apart by tree branches and hit the ground in pieces with
virtually no hole made in the tree canopy.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Block said there are also “immense” parcels of private land
that are full of swampy ground and are uninhabited, except for an occasional
cabin or cottage. It’s quite possible the plane was swallowed up in a swamp
pit, never to be seen again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“It’s not somewhere where you would be out two-tracking,” he
said.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Today, John Block realizes the odds of finding the missing
plane and his parents are long. But he holds out hope someone will come across
the plane with white wings and orange tips, and a green and white fuselage with
the tail number N50935. He points out that any pieces of aircraft found today
would indicate an unidentified aircraft, since crash scenes are completely
cleaned of debris after they have been investigated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I still hope every day to hear some news,” Block said. “It
would be nice to have some closure. Finding my parents is definitely at the top
of my bucket list.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-69675904836793568552013-03-07T09:39:00.002-08:002013-03-07T09:39:09.597-08:00Diving the Blue Heron Bridge: Not sexy, but plenty to look at<span style="font-size: large;">David Heidemann has travelled around the world while putting more than 300 dives into his diving log.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Those Caribbean destinations certainly have their own benefits, but Heidemann is convinced one of the best places to photograph underwater life is a barren, bleak, colorless landscape under the Blue Heron Bridge in West Palm Beach, Florida.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The location includes, free parking and free diving, a since the max depth on the dive is not much more than 20 feet, the dives can last 90 minutes or more.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The diving must be done at high slack tide, so divers must review tide tables and stay clear of areas designated for boat traffic, but the payoff is the chance to see a tremendous amount of marine life. Heidemann believes the abundance of marine life the area is due to the never-ending amount of nutrients that are pushed under the bridge due to the changing tides.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The bridge is located between the mainland of Florida and Singer Island. Free parking is available at Foster Park.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Here is my interview my Heidemann at the 32nd Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival.</span><br />
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<object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3Z-T_me_HNE/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Z-T_me_HNE?version=3&f=user_uploads&c=google-webdrive-0&app=youtube_gdata" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Z-T_me_HNE?version=3&f=user_uploads&c=google-webdrive-0&app=youtube_gdata" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, here is a pretty detailed web page on found online that can tell you all about diving under the Blue Heron Bridge:<a href="http://www.wadespage.com/D800DS06RF01.shtml">click here</a></span>Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-62869146444073197272013-02-28T14:57:00.000-08:002013-02-28T14:57:43.015-08:00Coral comeback: Reef ‘seeding’ in the Caribbean<span lang="EN"><div align="LEFT" dir="LTR">
By David McFadden</div>
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<span style="font-family: Nimrod MT; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Nimrod MT; font-size: x-small;">Associated Press</span></span></div>
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ORACABESSA BAY, Jamaica — Mats of algae and seaweed have shrouded the once thick coral in shallow reefs off Jamaica’s north coast. Warm ocean waters have bleached out the coral, and in a cascade of ecological decline, the sea urchins and plant-eating reef fish have mostly vanished, replaced by snails and worms that bore through coral skeletons.</div>
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Now, off the shores of Jamaica, as well as in Caribbean islands from Bonaire to St. Croix, conservationists are planting fast-growing coral species to try and turn things around by "seeding" reefs. The strategy has doubters, with one expert joking that prayer might be as effective, but conservationists say the problem is so catastrophic that inaction is not an option. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, live coral coverage on Caribbean reefs is down to an average of just 8 percent, from 50 percent in the 1970s. <br />
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Lenford Dacosta grew up in the north Jamaican fishing village of Oracabessa Bay and spear-fished the waters for most of his 46 years. Now he is part of a crew that tends to a small coral nursery in a fish sanctuary, hoping to revitalize the reef that sustained his village, whose shoreline is now dominated by ritzy resorts.</div>
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"I used to think that children would only hear about coral reefs and fish in books," said Dacosta, expressing hope that his work will yield fruit.</div>
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Seascape Caribbean, the fledgling company that employs Dacosta and touts itself as the region’s first and only private coral restoration business, uses low-tech coral nurseries consisting of buoys and weights with small fragments of staghorn coral suspended from them on strings. The fragments grow on the strings until bits of tannish coral with the beginnings of antler-like branches are ready to be planted onto reefs. Other specialists grow coral fragments on concrete pedestals placed on the seabed. </div>
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Advocates say the reef restoration work, focused on the region’s fast-growing but threatened staghorn and elkhorn coral species, can boost rates of recovery and improve the outlook for coral. The efforts will never resurrect the vibrant reefs of 50 years ago, they acknowledge, but they believe they can help preserve some of a reef’s functionality and beauty.</div>
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"Coral cover is getting a little better here and I believe it will keep improving in the gardened areas," said Andrew Ross, a Canadian marine biologist and entrepreneur who founded Seascape Caribbean.</div>
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Reef-building coral is a tiny polyp-like animal that builds a calcium-carbonate shell around itself and survives in a symbiotic relationship with certain types of algae. Its reefs serve as vital spawning and feeding grounds for numerous marine creatures. It comes in some 1,500 known species, ranging from soft, undulating fans to those with hard skeletons that form reef bases. </div>
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But across the globe, reefs that have proven resilient for thousands of years are in serious decline, degraded by overfishing, pollution, coastal development and warming ocean waters. And threats to coral are only expected to intensify as a result of climate change and ocean acidification due to greenhouse gases. </div>
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The stakes couldn’t be higher along the Caribbean Sea, which has nearly 8,000 square miles (20,720 sq. kilometers) of coral reefs.</div>
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The tropical islands’ iconic reefs protect fragile coastlines by absorbing energy from waves during hurricanes and normal conditions. Financially, the Caribbean has a multibillion-dollar beach tourism and commercial fishing economy. In Jamaica alone, reef fisheries support up to 20,000 fishermen. </div>
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Caribbean coral has deteriorated so badly in recent decades that a new report from a team of international scientists says that the rocky structures of the reefs are on the threshold of gradual erosion.</div>
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"The Caribbean, as a whole region, seems to be in a very poor state," said Chris Perry, a geography professor at the University of Exeter who led the regional coral research.</div>
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In the face of this decline, some coral specialists and conservationists say passive inaction would be a grave mistake. They argue that the results of the nascent coral restoration work will be seen in coming years. </div>
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In the U.S. Virgin Islands, scientists with The Nature Conservancy have reared some 2,500 coral colonies and transplanted over 1,000 fragments to local reefs with the aid of U.S. stimulus money. In the Dominican Republic, the Puntacana Ecological Foundation in the thriving tourist town of Punta Cana has planted some 1,200 fragments of Acropora coral, a genus that includes staghorn and elkhorn. </div>
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"What started as an experiment to protect the endangered Acropora species has become one of the largest nurseries in the Caribbean and a laboratory for other resorts and researchers to conduct restoration work," said Jake Kheel, the foundation’s environmental director.</div>
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The Key Largo, Florida-based Coral Restoration Foundation, a pioneer in efforts to revitalize stressed reefs, has helped the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire set up coral nurseries. Meanwhile, in southern Jamaica, researchers are feeding low-voltage electricity to young coral to try and spur growth, a method that has been used in places like Indonesia and Malaysia. </div>
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Some coral experts say the labor-intensive reef restoration projects may be increasingly popular but they have yet to see any significant successes out of them. These critics believe the scope of the problem is simply too vast and restoration efforts don’t address the underlying, accelerating forces collapsing reefs.</div>
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"It responds more to the very human need to `do something’ in the face of calamity, even if what you do is really a waste of time. Prayer would be just as useful," said Roger Bradbury, an ecologist and adjunct professor of resource management at Australian National University in Canberra. </div>
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Bradbury argues that coral restoration actually diverts scarce resources away from what should be researchers’ main focus, which is what to do with reef regions after the reefs are gone. "The reefs just won’t be there, but something will — a new sort of ecosystem," he said.</div>
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Phil Kramer, a marine geologist who is director of The Nature Conservancy’s Caribbean program, acknowledges that the long term outlook for coral reefs is poor in the face of current threats and projected increases in temperature and ocean acidification. But he says that can’t justify the "abandonment" of reefs.</div>
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"It is true that Caribbean reefs are generally in bad shape at the moment and that if more interventions are not taken we will continue to lose what remains. But I remain cautiously optimistic about the future," Kramer said.</div>
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Helping the various restoration efforts, some regional governments are taking action to protect key species on the reefs. Belize, which boasts the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere, has established bans on harvesting parrotfish, a colorful herbivore that grazes on the algae and seaweed that smothers coral. </div>
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By contrast, parrotfish are now the most popular catch in heavily-overfished Jamaica, sold at the side of the road and in supermarkets and restaurants.</div>
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Increasing sea surface temperatures have led to a dramatic rise in coral bleaching incidents in which the stressed organisms expel the colorful algae living in their tissues, leaving a whitish color. Up to 90 percent of corals in parts of the eastern Caribbean suffered bleaching in 2005, and more than half died.</div>
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But on Jamaica’s north coast, Dacosta says he is gradually seeing some balance restored to the Oracabessa Bay fish sanctuary where he works to transplant coral fragments and scoop up snails and worms from reefs. He says bigger fish and algae-grazing black sea urchins are seen more frequently.</div>
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"I tell you," Dacosta said. "We should have started this a long time ago," </div>
</span></span>Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-72183806968413461042013-01-30T13:49:00.001-08:002013-01-31T14:25:29.732-08:00Speakers announced for 32nd Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival<span style="font-family: inherit;">The 32nd Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival has been set for March 2 at Washtenaw Community College.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The event will be located in the college's Morris Lawrence Building, 4800 E. Huron River Drive in Ann Arbor between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The festival is a partnership between the Ford Seahorse Scuba Dive Club, the Detroit Historical Society's Dossin Maritime Group and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I attended the festival for the first time last year, and it was a tremendous experience. I wrote several stories about the festival and recorded several interviews, all of which are posted on this blog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I plan on attending again this year and recommend it to you as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tickets
for the event are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. For ticket information or
program details, visit </span><a href="https://email.journalregister.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=tnvkvxcDBkyYH7P4sLenIHvylyGQ0s8IrlGF6VSuAKrwjFK5bjWLwdDn3nAr_O--DCQ-GELHXCs.&URL=http%3a%2f%2f3mail.tricky3.co.uk%2ft%2fr-l-uyhjthk-ejidkjjur-n%2f" style="color: #333333;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">www.shipwreckfestival.org</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, call (734) 485-0492 or e-mail
</span><a href="mailto:glsftickets@aol.com"><span style="font-family: inherit;">glsftickets@aol.com</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Shipwrecks
are always the theme of this event and this year is no exception. The Festival
will provide seminars that include Great Lakes maritime history and shipwreck
presentations along with Saltwater exotic locations and Educational/Technical
topics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
the Festival Shipwreck Room they will have a number of entertaining presentations;
Valerie van Heest will share two new Lake Michigan shipwreck programs—including
the wreck of the whaleback <span class="vessel">Henry Cort</span>. David Trotter will present four new
shipwreck finds from 2011/12 including the 268 foot steamer <span class="vessel">New York</span>. Jim and Pat Stayer will highlight the 100th
anniversary of the Great Storm of 1913 in their program. Tony Gramer brings us
video on the tug <span class="vessel">Anna Dobbins</span> lost in Saginaw Bay in
1886. Ross Richards will have a program on Michigan Mystery Losses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
the exotic Saltwater Room, Tony Gramer will take us to the Philippines where his
program will include a very special whale shark encounter. Roger Roth will take
us to Hawaii and share his video “Why Dive it Again?” Dave Haas will share his
presentation on the Caribbean destination Bonaire. Jim and Pat Stayer will show
their video of Yap “Sharks, Mantas and Macro.” David Heidemann will share his
images of Diving the Blue Heron Bridge in Florida. Rudy Whitworth will provide
presentations from Indonesia: “Flores – Alor – Komodo” and “Raja Ampat—Papua
Paradise.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
For
the Tech/Ed Room, Rich Synowiec, in his presentation will take us “From Wreck to
Tech Wreck” diving. Luke Clyburn and John O’Shea, were standing room only last
year and both speakers will return with updated presentations. Robert McGreevy
has a historical presentation on the <span class="vessel">Key Stone
State </span>— she was a side wheel steamer built in 1849 and lost with all 33
souls on board in 1861. Officers from the MI State Police UW Recovery Unit will
have a presentation on the search and recovery of a light plane lost in Lake
Michigan. James Mott will present a seminar on “Gas Management.” David Haas will
take us on “The Digital Journey in Underwater Imagery” and conclude with info on
the latest and greatest UW photo gear.</span>Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-60768223920644689172013-01-09T12:44:00.001-08:002013-01-09T12:44:31.049-08:00Dying Loons: Thousands of dead birds are showing up on northern Michigan’s shorelinesThis story has nothing to do with scuba diving, but I will make the assumption that most scuba divers care about the environment or at least are concerned about damage being done to the enviroment.<br />
I wrote this story because I think it's something that everyone in the state of Michigan, the Midwest and the southern part of the United States should know about.<br />
Thousands of Michigan waterfowl washed up dead on the banks of Lake Michigan this past fall, the majority of which were common loons. The working hypothesis is that the loons died because they consumed botulism-infected round gobies, an invasive species. As any of you who dive Great Lakes shipwrecks know, the shipwrecks, at least in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, are often covered with gobies. Here is the link to my story, which includes a video with my primary source for the information. <a href="http://www.macombdaily.com/article/20130106/LIFE09/130109616/0/SEARCH/dying-loons-thousands-of-dead-birds-are-showing-up-on-northern-michigan-s-shorelines">http://www.macombdaily.com/article/20130106/LIFE09/130109616/0/SEARCH/dying-loons-thousands-of-dead-birds-are-showing-up-on-northern-michigan-s-shorelines</a><br />
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I'd like to know what you think.Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-48166061166544598172013-01-03T10:11:00.002-08:002013-01-03T10:11:39.094-08:00Sea-Side Dive Shop offers into to scuba classes on Jan. 12Sea-Side Dive Shop in St. Clair Shores is offering Bubblemaker and Discover Scuba classes in their pool on Jan. 12.<br />
<div align="justify" style="text-align: justify;">
The Bubblemake class is designed for 8- and 9-year old children. Class fee includes use of all the equipment plus the
Bubblemaker Kit. Kids love this program and it is a great way to introduce
children, grand children, nephews and nieces to diving. The program runs noon-2 p.m. and costs $50.</div>
The second program, the Discover Scuba class also takes place between noon-2 p.m. It is a great way for
non-divers to find out just how much fun it is to scuba dive. Sea-Side provides all
the equipment. Upon completion, the
fee can be applied to the cost of the confined water class if the student signs
up within 6 months.<br />
Call 586-772-7676 for more information.Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-61067327383737197432012-12-06T13:52:00.002-08:002012-12-06T13:54:26.572-08:00133-year-old wooden steamer New York found in Lake Huron<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/RRPg9v6ZaYY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
For scuba divers, watching an ancient shipwreck emerge in the murky gloom beneath their feet is quite a rush.</div>
But imagine being the first pair of eyes to view that ship in more than 100 years. David Trotter has done that many times in his 30 years as a shipwreck hunter. For him, viewing a previously discovered shipwreck doesn’t get his juices flowing. It’s the thrill of the hunt and the journey rather than the destination. And it’s a passion he has followed for more than 30 years.<br />
Trotter announced the news of his latest discovery on Tuesday, Dec. 4, the 133-year-old wooden steamer New York, discovered in Lake Huron in May and dived for the first time in July. The discovery was the result of more than two years of searching with his expedition team, Undersea Research Associates, an operation that is funded by Trotter and includes a small group of volunteer divers and support personnel.<br />
The wreck was found about 20 miles southeast of Alpena and about 75 degrees and 25 miles out from the small port town of Harrisville. Side-scan sonar was used to locate the vessel, which is located in about 240 feet of water.<br />
The time consuming part of the search is largely due to inaccurate information. Groups lay down search grids based upon information given at the time of the sinking by the surviving crew members. In this case, and many others, different men provide different locations and different stories. It’s not surprising, since as the ship is going down, the men are thinking about surviving, not about charting its last location. Trotter said some stories had the ship going down 25 miles further north, while others had it 5-10 miles further south.<br />
"It was quite obvious we had a shipwreck and that it was a steamer as opposed to a schooner based upon its size," Trotter said of the initial sonar sighting. "Since the stern was damaged, we couldn’t determine its full length and whether or not it was the New York. It could have been one of three other ships that were thought to go down in that area."<br />
The New York, built in 1879 to a length of 283 feet, is historically significant for two reasons. First, at the time of her construction, she was the largest ship to ply the Great Lakes, the leviathan of her time. And secondly, at the time of her sinking 31 years later, she represented a changing of the guard in ship construction. As a "woody," by 1910, she was a bit of a relic; most of her neighbors on the sea were made of steel.<br />
The New York was headed northbound in October 1910 from Detroit to Canada carrying a load of coal when it was caught in a violent gale. She lost power and fell into a trough (sideways) where the waves pummeled the ship.<br />
The 430-foot steamer Mataafa, with the 376-foot Whaleback Alexander Holley in tow, spotted the New York and realized she was in serious danger. Captain Regan, of the Mataafa, began a turn into the raging seas when its load of iron ore shifted, causing the vessel to nearly capsize. She was now two feet lower on one side. Despite the risks, Regan brought the Mataafa around and headed toward the New York. They also poured about 40 gallons of oil into Lake Huron to calm the water.<br />
The captain and the 13-member crew of the New York were able to transfer into two small lifeboats and were then picked up by the Mataafa. No souls were lost.<br />
Because the wreck sits so deep on the floor of Lake Huron, the dive down to her would be a technical one, with expert divers using mixed gas. Quite a bit of planning and safety considerations would have to be established.<br />
"There is tremendous excitement and intensity for the first two divers down because they are the first ones to lay eyes on her, but they also have tasks to complete, securing the mooring line and shooting video. The second group gets to explore," Trotter said.<br />
URA dived the site for three months, starting in July, and felt pretty confident they had found the New York, but they had no authentication, especially since the stern, where her identification would have been located, had been so severely damaged.<br />
Then, in September, paydirt.<br />
"(A diver) went portside, about 50 feet from the wreck and found what looked like a giant bowl," Trotter said. "It was very heavy … but he managed to turn it over and it turned out to be the capstan cover. It was made of brass and engraved in the capstan cover were the words, ‘New York.’ We had finally validated the ship’s identity on the very last dive of the year."<br />
The ship sits upright with stern damage almost up to its engine compartment. Its two broken stacks lay nearby. As is common, its upper structure was blown off, thanks to trapped air pressure, during the sinking.<br />
Trotter, 72, has been sidelined from diving for about two years to due to medical complications, but that hasn’t stopped his passion for searching the Great Lakes to track down its remaining lost ships. The former Ford Motor Credit executive has, by his estimate, explored and charted more than 2,200 square miles of Lake Huron. That represents about 20 percent of the U.S. side.<br />
He has two more ships on his "bucket list," the Water Witch and R.G. Colburn, two ships that have eluded him for the last 15 years.<br />
"The great thrill is to know what you have found and then view it for the first time and come up and share those tales. It’s quite a rush," Trotter said. "People often ask me ‘what’s the most exciting ship I’ve found, and I say ‘the next one.’ "<br />
For more info, visit Trotter's website at <a href="http://www.shipwreck1.com/">www.shipwreck1.com</a></span><span style="font-family: Franklin Gothic Demi; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Franklin Gothic Demi; font-size: xx-small;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Franklin Gothic Demi; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Franklin Gothic Demi; font-size: xx-small;"></span></span><br />Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-60887005477614481102012-12-04T13:16:00.000-08:002012-12-04T13:17:11.593-08:00Canton shipwreck hunter announces discovery of 133-year-old wooden steamer in Lake HuronShipwreck hunter David Trotter and his expedition team, Undersea Research Associates, announced today the discovery of the 133-year-old New York, a 283-foot wooden steamer found this summer in Lake Huron after about two years of searching.<br />
The ship was first located by sonar scanning in May and was found by divers in July in about 240 feet of water. It sits upright, but it has major stern damage after sinking from that direction. It is located about 20 miles southeast of Alpena, or about 75 degrees and 25 miles out from the small port of Harrisville.<br />
At the time of the sinking, the New York was the largest wooden vessel plying the Great Lakes. Historically, she represents a transitional period in shipping in which steel-hulled boats were becoming the norm.<br />
<em></em><br />
<em>I interviewed Trotter this afternoon and will have video of that discussion later on this week along with a more extensive story. So stay tuned for that.</em><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--BAzsf4--y0/UL5nZjgg_9I/AAAAAAAAAEo/1M_xUb_OCAU/s1600/the+new+york+for+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="162" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--BAzsf4--y0/UL5nZjgg_9I/AAAAAAAAAEo/1M_xUb_OCAU/s320/the+new+york+for+blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 283-foot New York while she was still in service.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The New York was headed northbound in October 1910 from Detroit to Canada carrying a load of coal when it was caught in a violent gale. She lost power and fell into a trough (sideways) where the waves pummeled the ship.<br />
The 430-foot steamer Mataafa, with the 376-foot Whaleback Alexander Holley in tow, spotted the New York and realized she was in serious danger. Captain Regan, of the Mataafa, began a turn into the raging seas when its load of iron ore shifted, causing the vessel to nearly capsize. She was now two feet lower on one side. Despite the risks, Regan brought the Mataafa around and headed toward the New York. They also poured about 40 gallons of oil into Lake Huron to calm the water.<br />
The 14-member crew of the New York was able to transfer into two small lifeboats and was then picked up by the Mataafa. No souls were lost.<br />
Trotter, a scuba diver since 1965, has been wreck hunting for 30 years. During that time, he has discovered 90-100 wrecks. He puts the discovery of the New York in his top five, primarily due to its historical signficance.Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-72470251128102099922012-09-26T13:07:00.000-07:002012-09-26T13:07:35.075-07:00West Michigan Underwater Preserve becomes official<o:p></o:p>
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A number of Lake Michigan
shipwrecks are now being officially protected and promoted as Michigan’s 13th
underwater preserve.</div>
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The West <span style="font-family: inherit;">Michigan Underwater Preserve recently became official
with the filing of paperwork with the state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The new preserve covers about</span> 345 square miles and features 13
identified shipwrecks and three other diving structures. It encompasses West Michigan’s shoreline from a point
between Grand Haven and Holland north to the northern boundary of Ludington
State Park. This area contains 13 known shipwrecks, and almost certainly more waiting to be discovered, according to the West Michigan Underwater Preserve website.</div>
West Michigan Underwater Preserve board co-chair John Hanson says the shipwreck represent "maritime history for the whole area."<br />
While I've dived in Lake Michigan on the western side of the state (Traverse City), I've never put in that far south. After reading this story, it certainly seems like a place I would like to check out. In addition, it seems to have dive sites ranging from novice to advanced.<br />
The benefits of establishing the preserve are basically threefold, all designed to protect the wrecks.<br />
First, the wrecks are protected as "underwater museums," which means they cannot be destroyed and in theory, divers cannot remove artifacts from the wrecks.<br />
Secondly, the wrecks will be marked with buoys so boats and divers can locate the wrecks more easily.<br />
And lastly, the wrecks will be chartered on maps to protect them from boat traffic in the West Michigan area of the lake.<br />
Here is some brief information about each of the wreck sites, as provided by the West Michigan Underwater Preserve website:<br />
<strong>Brightie</strong><br />
Built in Cleveland in 1868, the Brightie foundered in Lake Michigan north of Whitehall on August 13, 1928. She is broken up timbers and lies in abou 70 feet of water.<br />
<strong>The Clay Wall</strong><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GrgWal8n68A/UGNebQYxE3I/AAAAAAAAADo/f5bLQhS2apU/s1600/comanche.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GrgWal8n68A/UGNebQYxE3I/AAAAAAAAADo/f5bLQhS2apU/s320/comanche.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Comanche</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The naturally occurring clay wall lies in 50 feet of water about 1/2 mile northwest of the Whitehall Channel.<br />
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<strong>The Comanche</strong><br />
Approximately five miles north of Pentwater, the Comanche is a 75 - 100 foot tugboat in 75 feet of water.<br />
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<strong>The Henry Cort</strong><br />
A 320-foot whaleback steamer, the Henry Cort was stranded along the Muskegon Breakwall of Lake Michigan on Nov. 30, 1934. The crew survived, but one rescuer was lost in the storm. She lies in 20-30 feet of water.<br />
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<strong>The Daisy Day</strong><br />
A shallow wreck, the Daisy Day is a 103-foot wooden steam-powered bulk freighter that sank in Lake Michigan in 1891. She is described as sitting in shallow water off Claybanks Twp Park in Oceana County.<br />
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<strong>The William B. Davock</strong><br />
About 1.9 miles off the Little Sable Light lies the William B. Davock, a 420-foot steel bulk freight steamer. She sank in more than 200 feet of water in the Armistice Day storm of 1940. She sits in 215-240 feet of water, beyond recreational dive limits.<br />
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<strong>Hamilton Reef</strong><br />
The Hamilton Reef (also known as "The Rock Pile") is an artificial reef of cement rubble in a snake formation that lies just south of the Muskegon Channel in Lake Michigan. It provides habitat for fish, making it an interesting dive. It sits in about 30 feet of water.<br />
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<strong>The Helen</strong><br />
The Helen, a 90-foot merchant schooner, sank in the gale of November 18, 1886. She lies in 10 feet of water about one mile north of the Muskegon Channel. She is an elusive wreck, appearing and disappearing in the shifting sands of Lake Michigan.<br />
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<strong>The Interlaken</strong><br />
The Interlaken went down in a storm in 1936. She is in Lake Michigan about 7 miles north of Whitehall in 15 feet of water.<br />
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<strong>Ironsides</strong><br />
In 120 feet of water four miles west of the Grand Haven Channel lies the Ironsides, a 218-foot wooden twin prop steamer. She foundered in heavy seas on September 15, 1873.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MaGyKzvt5rg/UGNexgF2ZRI/AAAAAAAAADw/uPFTuz8OfR4/s1600/minch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MaGyKzvt5rg/UGNexgF2ZRI/AAAAAAAAADw/uPFTuz8OfR4/s1600/minch.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Anna C. Minch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<strong>The Anna C. Minch</strong><br />
The Anna C. Minch went down in the Armistice Day storm on November 11, 1940. She is a 380-foot steel bulk freighter steamer, and was broken in two during the storm. She sits in 35-45 feet of water.<br />
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<strong>The Novadoc</strong><br />
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The Novadoc shipwreck is 252-foot steel bulk freighter off Juniper Beach near Pentwater Built in 1928 at Wallsend, England, the Novadoc sank during the Armistice Day storm in 1940. She can be observed by either diving or snorkeling in 12-15 feet of water.<br />
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<strong>The Salvor</strong><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vcN18N0gHHg/UGNfAU6nr3I/AAAAAAAAAD4/6lZiiiQlO6o/s1600/stateofmichigan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vcN18N0gHHg/UGNfAU6nr3I/AAAAAAAAAD4/6lZiiiQlO6o/s1600/stateofmichigan.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The State of Michigan</td></tr>
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The Salvor is a 253-foot wooden pseduo-whaleback steamer that was converted to a steel bulk freight barge. She foundered in a storm in 1930 while being towed. She lies in 25-30 feet of water.<br />
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<strong>The State of Michigan</strong><br />
A 165-foot wooden passenger freight steamer, the State of Michigan was built in 1875 in Manitowac, WI. She sank in Lake Michigan about two miles north of Whtehall on October 18, 1901. The boiler and outer hull are intact. She sits in 60-75 feet of water.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h6RlCH10sD0/UGNfFcqz_zI/AAAAAAAAAEA/RvB6d2rMV-M/s1600/state-of-michigan-diver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h6RlCH10sD0/UGNfFcqz_zI/AAAAAAAAAEA/RvB6d2rMV-M/s320/state-of-michigan-diver.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The State of Michigan</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
For more information, go the the West Michigan Underwater Preserve site at <a href="http://www.wmup.org/home">http://www.wmup.org/home</a><br />
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Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561092785506119687.post-19210044906481854852012-08-16T13:01:00.004-07:002012-09-15T15:51:40.909-07:00Slideshow of underwater photos from scuba diving in Cozumel, Mexico (It's working)It's working now!<br />
<br />
I forgot to mention that some of my underwater photographs from my recent diving trip to Cozumel, Mexico are now online.<br />
Unfortuntely, I cannot place a slideshow on my blog, but it is available for viewing on our Macomb Daily website by clicking on this link <a href="http://www.macombdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/tngallery?Site=MD&Date=20120720&Category=LIFE01&ArtNo=720009998&Ref=PH">http://www.macombdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/tngallery?Site=MD&Date=20120720&Category=LIFE01&ArtNo=720009998&Ref=PH</a><br />
<br />
I'm still fairly new to underwater photography, but I've got some decent shots, including several octopi from a night dive.Don Gardnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09894540922872024658noreply@blogger.com1