Cave Point, Door County

[Dewit2it]

I was going to hit Shawno Lake with my new snorkeling partner, but when I saw the dead calm of Skumbago, we decided to hit Cave Point instead.  When we got there we had only 1 footers coming in with S-SSE winds.  Vis was ranging from 3-~20' depending on how close to shore you were.  There was a lot of floating algae near shore.  There was some current moving northward.  We had a ton of alewife/smelt around there, but we didn't see any predators other than gulls.  The bottom near the caves is rocky with sand bars further out.  Depths ran 5-10'.  The thermocline was around 7'.

We didn't go too much further South than the large rock that had fallen, as I didn't want to get caught in the area of undertow that is warned about on the Whitefish Dunes beach.(Cave Point is just north of it) :o  To the north of the large caves, the cliff has eroded away to a rock shelf just above the waterline.  The shelf is what we used as our entry/exit point.  Further north, the waves have cut channels in the rock that are pretty neat sights UW.  The waves were starting to throw us around a bit out there, so we decided to call it.  This is an excellent snorkel on a calm day for a surface interval.    I also found a Geocache in the rocks.

[Dewit2it]

I also ran across a fragment of a wooden ladder near the caves.  Has any ship broken up near Cave Point/Whitefish Dunes? ???  Or is it just part of some other ships wreckage field.

[jasondbaker]

I was just at Cave Point last weekend while I was visiting family in Sturgeon Bay.  I thought it would make a great dive spot.  Next time I'll have to bring my gear.  Thanks for sharing.

[Dewit2it]

The weather was almost perfect yesterday for Cave Point.  Wave action was a little strong and prevented us from looking at the shelf fingers north of the caves.  Puddie, myself, nephews and a friend snorkeled/SASYed.  We saw a couple of small schools of smelt/alewife.  Water temps were on the cold side and I heard 61 degrees.  Viz varied from 0-30'.  We had some current from the north.  I found a dollar bill and my youngest nephew found a ring to add to his treasure chest.

????DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THERE WAS A WRECK HERE?????

We found several long pieces of iron strap 4"x1"x5-6' with holes about right size for trunnel nails along the shore and out to 100 yds out.  We also found a chunk of wood that had large square nails in it along with some bent steel rods, and a chunk of 1"cable.  Add to that the ladder fragment that I found on the last dive.  The wood with nails and ladder could have floated in from elsewhere, but the metal chunks wouldn't have, unless pounded out of the wood by wave action/rocks.

Could these have come from the Ocean Wave off Whitefish Dunes?  Or is there a undiscovered wreck in the area?

[Dewit2it]

I picked up that book at Green Bay Scuba today.  The wreckage that we found looks to be that of the D. A.  Van Valkenburg by the description of it being near a 20-30' rock ledge.  The cleaner of the straps was right at the base in 3' of water by a large fallen rock south of an huge chunk.  Sounds like we could have seen bones had we gone a bit further south, as the book says that remains could be seen in 9' of water.  That may have been years ago, and the remains could be in deeper water.  I wouldn't want to go much further south, as there is an area of rip currents at the north end of Whitefish Bay that's warned about on the beach.

The description of the Gray Eagle's demise has her on the rocks in the rip current zone.  :o That sounds like a dead calm water dive only.

So it looks like we may have the Valkenberg located again, only more diving will tell.  It's cool to have another shore dive in Door County.

[Dewit2it]

Here's the chainplate that was near shore. The pic was taken in Jan of this year.  Lot's of ice right now from the last storm.   Not too sure where what's left of the hull might be.  The waves don't seem to tell.  From the book I should have seen something from shore, but nothing so far.  It might be near the rip current zone a little further south, or has washed out into deeper water.

[Dewit2it]

TOTALLY AWESOME DAY TODAY!!!!!!! ;D ;D ;D

Water was clear and calm and no current.  Around 50+ degrees and 50+ viz.  Took my new Gates housing and HD camcorder for a snorkel.  Saw a school of small trout, a 2' sucker, alewife/smelt, and a bunch of dead and dying gobies.  Looks like the VHS virus is wacking the gobies hard.  Snorkeled around the rock fingers from the cliffs north. 

I'll get video up as soon as I can figure out what the bug in the firewire is. ???

[Dewit2it]

I hit Cave Point again yesterday and it was another perfect day.   The water was calm and not bad in a 5mm once the water got warmed up.  There was a little current running from the south that made the swim back easy. Alewife were all over but not in the large schools we saw last summer.  Saw a few 10-12" trout. 

I ran to the south along the caves filming and looking for debris of the D.A. VanValkenburg.  I found a section of hull or deck in about 6' of water buried by rock.  The exposed part is only about 3' long roughly in the area of the third cave south of the large cut at the county park, and 50-75' offshore.  Most of the visible metal debris is near shore, leading me to believe that she's been almost completely battered apart by the waves and rocks. 

Found the video bug, and posting of videos will have to wait until I can spend $200 on a upgrade program to my editor to handle HD video.

[Dewit2it]

Stopped in today.  Near shore the water was murky with around 5' of viz max.  If you go out a ways it improves.  There are thick hovering areas of algae on the bottom that can make a mess if stirred up.  It was disorienting swimming over that stuff.  In the shore zone the rocks come at you fast.  Need a good storm to wash that crap out of the area.

Otherwise, I found a few more parts of the wreck.  Mainly a few trunnel nails, some bent up square spikes and a bent length of rod that had a clevis at one end.  Also in one of the caves there was a few metal looking pieces that might have been a bike, but I didn't investigate further. 

Waves were starting to grow and I had to get out.

[Dewit2it]

Here's a couple of frame captures from video shot on June 11.  So far, It's the only part of the hull that I've found.