Munising - Alger Preserve

[Omicron]

Got to go dive Alger Preserve in Munising this weekend. Me, Al, George, my girlfriend Tina and Al's girlfriend Vicki all went and camped on the Munising bayshore and dove some great wrecks.

Our first morning out was a little frustrating, as we were expecting the wrecks to be buoyed and we didn't have coords for the wrecks. The wrecks hadn't been buoyed yet we were a little frustrated with that. We went back to camp and dug up the coordinates for the Smith Moore out of Chris Kohl's book The Great Lakes Diving Guide. Lets just say his coordinates aren't completly accurate. We then went back to Pete Lindquists shop and lo and behold, there were the buoys on his dock. He gave us VERY good sighting directions as well as coordinates to the Smith Moore.

With accurate directions we found the Smith Moore in short order on our depthfinder and dropped anchor and marker buoy. Tina and I had a very enjoyable dive on the wreck even though the viz was only around 15' or so. George and Al shot a lift bag on the buoy rope and we buoyed the wreck when we came up from the dive. A very nice dive!

Next was the Stephen M Selvick. We went out a little farther and used our GPS to find the wreck. We made a couple of passes and we quickly found the "lump" on the bottom that was the Selvick. Anchors away and Tina and I were once again the first down the anchor line to the wreck. We had a LOT of fun playing around with all the tools and hardware that are scattered around the lake bottom near the stern of the wreck. We were playing drums on the rocks with a couple of bolts! We dove the wreck, penetrated the pilot house and watched a huge burbot hide underneath the wreck. George and Al came down the anchor line and I was going to join them in penetrating the wreck, however my dive light died.

That night we dove the abandoned pier behind the Munising high school - saw some huge carp, lots of crayfish and a couple of yellow perch. A fun dive though - I feel like I'm cruising through a pine plantation on that pier....very neat.

The next day (Sunday) we took off for the Bermuda. Tina and I dove the Bermuda while George, Al and Vicki freedove/snorkeled the wreck. I like this wreck because you can really get up close to the rudder and the rudder control on the stern, and you can swim through the cargo holds in this wreck pretty easily. A fun wreck as usualy.

Next, we took off over to Miners Castle. We were going to snorkle near the cliffs in that area, but Tina forgot her snorkle, and we were still in drysuits....so we just threw our scuba units back on and dove the area for a half hour. Had lots of fun just fooling around in shallow (~10 feet) water and we dug up a lot of quarters and a buffalo head nickel from 1906.

Overall, it was a GREAT weekend with some AWESOME diving. The only regret of the weekend was that we couldn't spend more time in such a beautiful area with good friends.

Thanks again Al and Vicki for the trip!!

[xtracheese4me]

sounds like ablast!! itl probably be a lil bit before I can cruise up that way.... I am however going to the apostle islands over ther july 4th weekend,,, any suggestions on where to go there?

Brian

[Omicron]

I'm not sure where to dive up there - I looked through my diving guide and there didn't see to be a lot of intact wrecks in the book. There did seem to be a lot of neat underwater geography to look at though....I'll see if I can send you a few pages out of the book sometime tonight.

[scubert]

Mr. Kohl has been blasted for that on a number of semi-local boards. I think it's due in part to the changing technology in GPS, also, if you look at large banks of his coordinates together you will see where he must have "cut and pasted" the format for each wreck listing and occasionally forgot to change the GPS coordinates
Like on the Josephine on pg 313. He lists the gps as 45* 45.454' x 75* 45.454'
These coordinates spring up more than you'd imagine if they had a good proof-reader.

[Omicron]

Interesting...

I know that we used his book to attempt to find the Rouse Simmons once as well. We spent around 3 hours running search patterns around the coordinates given in his book and never even found so much as a blip on our depth finder. Talk about a REALLY frustrating day. We've been burned by his coords a few times now....

I've noticed that some of his coordinates seem to be conversions from Loran as well. Loran isn't extremely consistent in the first place, and conversions from it introduc even more inaccuracy. Maybe that's what contributes to a lot of the problems....

I think in the future we are going to use his books as a guide to find out what we want to dive, then we'll get true location information from local dive shops/charters.

[dfreeman]

Went diving in the Alger County Preserve this last weekend. Bad weather above the water but good diving conditions underwater.

First dive was on the Tugboat Selvick. The big lake is beating this wreck to peices. It gets moved every year and is being pushed into shallow water. May need to move it to a spot where it does not get destroyed. A lot of fish are around this wreck, especially whitefish. Best part is going into the engine room. This hatch is starting to collapse and I will not fit in a few years. Plenty of burbotte in the wreck. This is still a neat attaction. Did not get any pictures. Operator error once again. :-[

They plan to sink more ships in all of the Michigan preserves. Hope they get a good one.

Second dive was on the Herman Hettler. This wreck is shallow and all broken up. Lots of fish life in the area. Wish I had taken the camera with as the fish were holding still and posed for the camera. There were burbotte, whitefish, sculpin and other minnows. There are a lot of crayfish here also. The wreck is OK, but the fish is the big attaction.

Next day did the Smith Moore. Had a great swim and saw a lot of fish. Only got a good picture of a sculpin. Plenty of pictures of the old wreck. Like the woodwork a lot on this wreck. Always wonder why the ship had to have all of the ornate woodwork. Sand continues to fill this ship in. See it while you can.

Here is a picture of one of the dive partners. In the background is the huge wooden railing at the stern of the ship. Why did it have to be so large. ???

Doug

[dfreeman]

Here is the sculpin that I got a picture of on the Smith Moore.

Doug

[dfreeman]

Finished the weekend on the Bermuda. This is a good wooden wreck and had some nice fish life. What I like the most is the freshwater sponges.

Here is a picture of the bass hanging around the bow hatch,

Doug

[dfreeman]

Here is a picture of the freshwater sponge.

Doug

[dfreeman]

One last picture of the bass. A great week of diving. Get out and dive as much as possible, it is great fun.

DOug