Diving Lake Michigan

[fishchaser]

Hello everybody. I'm a newbie, both to scuba and to this board. Seems like a great place and I'm glad I found it.

I was OW & AOW certified earlier this year in warm water, then rented some gear this summer and dove a couple local lakes (Kenosha county). I am now in the process of purchasing my own gear and am really looking forward to diving some of the Lake Michigan wrecks. Which leads me to a few questions:

1) Are the Lake Michigan (Milwaukee/Racine/Kenosha area) wrecks too cold to dive with a wetsuit? Would I need to restrict my diving to only the warmest months? (Which months would those be?) I was leaning towards either a Henderson Goldcore, or Hyperstretch, full suit in 7mm with 5mm core warmer. Also 7mm booties, gloves, hood. Would this be adaquate? And, any recommendations of the Goldcore over the Hyperstretch or vice versa?

2) I am also an avid fisherman and actually learned to fish out on Lake Michigan. I now own a boat that is Lake Michigan "worthy". It's not big (18 foot aluminum "walleye tournament" style boat), but I'm not afraid to be on the lake with it in 3-4 footers. My question is, how do you tie up to the moorings, and if a mooring isn't available, is anchoring acceptable?

3) Besides the Wisconsin Historical Society Shipwreck Database, is there a list of GPS lat/lon coordiates for the popular diving shipwrecks?

4) I see a few wrecks on nautical charts that I can't find in the WHS database. One in particular is between Racine and Kenosha, almost due West of the Rosinco, in about 33' of water. Anyone know what that is, and is it worth diving?

Thanks!
Chad

[matt t.]

Welcome to the board. You picked one of my favorite subjects for your first post! A wetsuit is fine for shorter NDL dives on the lake. As you progress you may want to buy a drysuit. Our group dove in wetsuits (Lake Michigan and ice diving) for 2 years. Adding a little warm/hot water to the suit before the dives may help. The Goldcore suit drys pretty quickly, and will also go on o.k. when wet. The sprayed on gold liner tends to wear off after a while. Don't know much about the Hyperstretch. All of the popular wrecks have a "permanent" moorings put on them, usually by the historical society or local charter captains. GPS coordinates can be found on several other web sites if you do a little searching. Maybe we'll see you around. Good luck!

Matt

[DiveCaptDean]

hey chaser,
welsome to the site. you will be fine for a while in a wet suit. you will be most comfortable in the mid summer months, but i have plenty of divers dive wet all season long. its a bit cold, but is done regularly. regarding your boat. i understand that you are comfortable on the lake in 3 to 4 footers..keep in mind..you will be tied up to a mooring...you will not float on top of the cresting water when you are tied to something. you wont be able to dive off that boat..comfortably in 4 footers...most dive boats usually dont go out in that weather anyway as it can make it difficult to get divers out of the water...there are two wrecks in the area that are moored by the state.....the Lumberman and the Dredge #6 ..aka(906) the rest are moored by us local charters. you would be looking for yellow or clay colored rope with some type of jug on it. usually a couple of laundry soap jugs, or thanks to Matt Tag setting me up, a couple have a five gallon white jug on them. ( by the way Matt...can you get me a couple more????)Without looking deeper, i dont know what wreck you are talking about..but unless its something new, and its in 33 ft.....it cant help but be broken up...Milwaukee is a great place to dive..there are a ton of wrecks here .....and jerry guyer (lender charters) keeps finding more each year. thre are many publications out there to help youget to the wrecks..some or off by a little, so are pretty close....if you for some reason are not able to find them...let me know..i can give you the common sites....i look forward to seeing you out there..keep in mind..some courtesy to the dive charter boats would be greatly appreciated..we are happy to help you out if you help us out as well. often..smaller boats tie up to our sterns as there are not many moorings on all wrecks..just think "kindness", and enjoy your diving.

Deano
wreckxpress dive charters

[DiveCaptDean]

hey chad...
i opened up some material and found the wreck you are probably talking about....well, one of these two is probably what you are talking about:

possibly the "Arab"......... a 310ft wood schooner that went down in 1883.......
more probably, by your description........the "Ole" my guess is that this was some kind of tug boat or something.that went down sometime after 1914.....

both of these wrecks are on local charts as obstructions....they look like little "footballs" on the charts...i have never dove them, and am confident that i never will. whatever they are, they are bound to be absolutely destroyed...also..this is a long way for me to travel to a wreck that not too many of my patrons would want to dive..i am not aware of anyone that has dove them.

you may want to look into diving the racine reef......i have heard there are several wrecks, or dump piles there that probably have some interesting things to see.....i would be careful as you are bound to run across alot of fishing line etc....

my personal suggestions would be to get up to milwaukee and look into diving some of the shallower wrecks in our area...and then work your way to some of the deeper stuff...

you may want to get your hands on the following:

"Jerry's Shipwreck Charts" Lake Michigan Shipwrecks and dive sites from North of Port Washington to the Illinois State Line"

little bound book that Jerry Guyer..( local charter captain ) made up that has most of the local wrecks in it...and charts....there are still some that are not in there as he has found a few since putting this one out.......you will most easily find it at Pirates Cove Dive center in Milwaukee as this is the shop that Jerry owns.....
I hope this helps.....
be safe
Deano

[fishchaser]

Dean,

Thanks a lot for your insight, as well as looking up that charted wreck. I suppose with so many other (undestroyed) wrecks in the vacinity, no one cares about the shallow ones. I've heard there are many shallow wrecks in Door County as well, but some of them look like giant toothpicks due to the surge action and rolling around on the bottom.

I will probably start my wreck diving by taking the PADI specialty course through my LDS in Kenosha. I'm not sure what wrecks they visit for this class, but I know they like diving the Wisconsin a lot, but not much bottom time due to its depth, right at the limit of recreational, and no nitrox. By going on the charter with them, I'll pay special attention to how they do things, and will try to duplicate their professional courtesy when I take my boat out.

Back to the GPS coordinates, I have looked around, and seems like the best source is the Wisconsin Historical Society Shipwreck Database but their data is suspect in some places. As far as I can tell, their coordinates are listed in dd.mm.ss (such as the Willie listed at N 43.01.36), but then some of their data has seconds in excess of 59, such as the Dredge 906 listed as lat N 42.57.92, and the Norlond as lon W 87.48.69. I don't know what to make of that. An error of 1 minute in lat is as much as 3652 feet off, or 0.69 st. miles. That's a lot of area to be crusing around looking for a bouy (if you're lucky) or watching the graph to find a lump on the bottom. Anyone care to share their confirmed lat/lon?

[DiveCaptDean]

hey chad.
i would assume you frequent Dan and Brian at Diver Dans....great guys. I have had them charter with me a few times....Dont be too anxious to dive the wisconsin right off the bat....its pretty deep and dark...get your fins wet with something a little more tame first.....

shoot me an email through my website....


If you promise me that you wont be out in four footers leaving your fishing boat alone tied up to a wreck, ....ill see what i can do for you...

deano

[divbum]

4) I see a few wrecks on nautical charts that I can't find in the WHS database. One in particular is between Racine and Kenosha, almost due West of the Rosinco, in about 33' of water. Anyone know what that is, and is it worth diving?
The is a barge in 30 something, I just can't remeber if it was just south of Kenosha or Racine. The guys at Mellow Yellow might have the numbers. I have them on a chart somewhere....
Have fun

[scubert]

Chad,
a bit of info on the 'seconds' part of the GPS equation.
Many GPS systems now use a measure of 100 seconds instead
of 60. Essentially you are breaking the 'minute' up into 100 parts to get a more accurate reading. Some GPS systems allow you to use the old style (60sec) , some don't. It's no biggy, simply divide the standard seconds by 60 and you will end up with a 100 based second count

ie 43 'old'seconds
/ 60
=
71.6 'new' seconds.

[fishchaser]

Hmmmm....then it wouldn't exactly be seconds anymore. It would be degrees, minutes, and a decimal fraction of a minute. Or, DD MM.mmmmmm, with as many or few m's as you wish.

I looked at my boat's GPS yesterday, and found that you can program waypoints a few different ways, but the standard display is DD° MM.mmm', as you suggested. There's no ambiguity, as it's clearly labeled degrees and minutes. No seconds symbol ("). The Wisconsin Historical Society's Shipwreck website doesn't have a legend of what they are using for a method, or any units. Their cordinates are listed like: 43.01.44 So it's unclear if that's dd.mm.ss or dd.mm.mm. If they'd list it like: 43 01.44 that's much easier to guess.

Sorry, don't mean to beat this to death. Thanks for your input. Maybe I should volunteer to update the WHS database for them. ;D