Wrecks, Wrecks, Wrecks
Did you ever wonder what happens to all the Military Ships, Sailboats, Outboards, Canoes etc. that leave the surface of the water and are never seen again. Well with the development of skin diving, scuba diving, and manned submersibles we are gradually learning not only where they are but how they came to be where they are.
I’m no great explorer of the deep such as Ballard, who found the Titanic, but I have done my share of visiting those known sites where wreck divers can go to experience those sunken wonders that have been located by those explorers or ones that have been scuttled to become a haven for divers as well as marine life.
My first encounter with a wreck was my initial dive in Lake Erie on probably the largest sunken ship in those waters, the Cleveco. A large oil barge that sank in a storm in 1942 along with its tow tug the Admiral. I was both frightened as well as mesmerized by this gigantic hulk that ended up on the bottom claimed by mother nature because commerce was more important than caution. After I viewed the results of the disaster first hand I went to the library and read up on the tanker to learn more about its fate.
After this early experience I had the fever to explore additional wrecks but known ones were few and far between in Lake Erie. There were some in the area of the islands at the West end of the lake but they were in shallow water and nothing remained but some main ribs or a steam boiler from the mid 1800's.
I guess this is what got me into boat salvage in the local marinas. When the winter months rolled around the lake began to rear its ugly head with the increasing winds out of the North. Because our lakefront was facing the North the marinas along the coast were right in the path of the onslaught of the fury.
Now most boaters knew enough to pull their boats out before this predictable yearly happening happened but there were the die hard fishermen that thought they could outsmart mother nature. Needless to say it put money in my pocket raising them from the deep.
I mentioned the Coin Pile in the book as well as another blog posting. What I didn't cover was the days we couldn't dive in the lake, due to rough water, we waited the winds out by drifting down the Niagara River. It was a neat experience in that you just drifted with the current observing various fish and debris. On one occasion I ran smack dab into a sunken sailboat. It was a small one, maybe about 20 feet in length and it had been down there so long that the boards were all about an inch apart from all the caulking that had come out. I was wondering how this boat ended up here and then I noticed part of the cargo it was carrying, bricks! There were about 50 large paving bricks all around the boat which I would imaging contributed to sending it to the bottom.
In addition to this chance encounter another diver and I traveled up to Tobermory, Canada located on a peninsula that juts out into the Georgian Bay. I covered this trip in detail as part of my book but this area was the graveyard of about 150 known wrecks. These wrecks were detailed in a publication called "The Shipwrecks of the Saugeen 1828 - 1938" that I understand is now out of print. There are a few floating around but they tend to be very expensive.
In the mid 70s when my company transferred me to central Florida, it opened a whole new experience to diving. No longer was I mired in the old ways of scrounging for new local places to dive as well as being armed with a whole new set of more modern diving equipment.
My new position as district manager saw me on the road all over Florida, as well as other states which gave me the opportunity to visit the various diving operations that would prove invaluable when I had the spare time to take advantage of what they offered.
In addition to this I joined a dive club where I exchanged diving stories from the North with theirs from the South. I also frequented local dive shops to add more up to date knowledge of the latest equipment and take an advanced course certification. Even though I had taught diving for five years at the Y.M.C.A. it had been so long ago that certain sections had improved and the introduction to salt water was totally new to me. Of course my son Gary was right along with me having two years of diving under his belt.
You can imagine one of my first questions to the locals was "Where are the wrecks?" to which I learned they were all up and down the East Coast of Florida. These wrecks manly consisted of what is known as Artificial Reefs which meant that they were ships that were cleaned out of any potential harmful substances such as oil or other toxins and holes cut into the superstructure so marine life could have easy access as a habitat. They served two purposes, first as a habitat and second, and this may have become even more of a reason over the years, as a dive location for local charter boats.
Hey, don't get me wrong, Gary and I had a ball for about the first ten years of exploring the wrecks up and down the coast but after that we yearned for more interesting wrecks with a history. By that I mean as I alluded to in the early portion of this piece, ones that arrived on the bottom due to a fate they had not expected.
Sunken ships outside and inside off the East Coast of Florida
For this reason we started to arrange dive trips that would take us off shore around Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. If you look at a detailed map of that area, because of the weather conditions that plague those waters along with the frequency of the German U Boats during the early days of WWll, the whole area is littered with sunken boats, some of which may never be found.
Fortunately for guys like us there are various dive operations in that area that are fully equipped to take you out and drop you on a number of WWIl as well as even WWl wrecks. We would combine a trip with two of our diving buddies from Cleveland, Walt and John, who would travel South as we traveled North to meet and dive together. All of us being wreck enthusiast just ate up the adventure.
The main attraction in the area was the German U Boat 352 that was the first submarine sunk by one of our destroyers in 1942. They captured a number of the crew and interned them on shore until the end of the war. The submarine lies in 100 feet of water and takes on about a 30 degree list. Its outside skin is slowly corroding away while its torpedo loading hatches are open the main conning tower hatch is not.
Gary on the U352
One of the dive operations we have frequented is Olympic Dive Charters in Moorehead, NC. They are very well equipped and will let you know in advance just what wrecks they plan on visiting when they leave shore. There are inexpensive bunkhouse accommodations that can be arranged through the shop.
On one trip Victor and I were diving on a freighter that was downed during WWll and found a porthole lying on the wreck site. We both wanted to lay claim to it but I told Victor that he could have it because I already had one from a tug in Lake Erie, which was mentioned in the book. I then told him that I would take it home, clean it up and then send it to him in Ohio. It turned out beautifully due to being all Brass.
Victor and Me with Find Porthole All Cleaned Up
A bit of additional information about the area off North Carolina, It's frequented by sharks, big sharks. Now don't let that curb your enthusiasm for diving to see the wrecks because along with the sharks are plenty of bait fish that keep them satisfied. They are the Sand Tiger variety and it seems we see the same ones every time we go.
Large Shark with its Unlimited Food Small Shark Inside Wreck
In my travels around Florida, I would run into other people who had an interest in diving. On one encounter a diver invited me to join him for a dive in the Gulf off the pan handle of Florida. He spiked my interest by saying he had a boat and I was welcome to join two of them to explore a Russian Freighter as well as a Confederate Barge they were going to visit.
Of course he didn't have to ask me twice so we made arrangements to make the trip. On the day of the dive we first anchored over the Russian Freighter and his buddy wanted to do some spear fishing due to a number of large fish that congregated around the wreck. He said it was best that he made a solo dive which would keep us out of harms way while he was spear fishing.
I readily agreed to this arrangement so he entered the water and when he surfaced about 30 minuets later with his catch, he said we would be getting a bonus on our dive because he spotted a Manta Ray cruising around the wreck.
We quickly got into our gear and made the dive to the wreck which was very large and mostly intact due to the depth as well as the Gulf not having as many storms as the open ocean. We spent the greater part of 30 minutes and were preparing to surface when who should show up but the manta ray. It came straight at me and swam directly over my head such that I could rub its belly. As we surfaced and swam towards the boat the other diver waiting on board said he could see the fins of the manta breaking the water following us.
When we arrived back at the boat, we climbed aboard and the other guy jumped in the water and began rubbing the manta's back. The manta stuck around for this affection but the minute the diver stopped paying attention the manta lifted one of its flippers and swam away as if to say "if you guys aren't going to play anymore I'm out of here”.
Diver with Manta Ray
I mentioned that we were also scheduled to dive a Confederate Barge that was in the same area. After we said good by to the Manta Ray we headed to the coordinates for the barge.
It was neat thinking that we were some of the few people that have seen this sunken object since the civil war. The interesting part also was that the barge, seeing it operated in salt water, used brass spikes as part of its construction. These spikes were laying around the barge so we picked up a few as souvenirs.
One thing is that the barge may have been visible the day we dove it and next year it would be buried in the shifting sands around the Gulf Shore. There have been more than one sunken object come and go due to this natural phenomenon.
Brass Spikes from Confederate Barge
As more time and money became available, due to my son and daughter finishing college along with my wife who decided she wanted to further her schooling and also got her degree, I was able to expand my horizons to further away locations where I would run into wrecks.
One of the most frequented Islands for small animals and all around pristine water year round is Bonaire. Because of its location below the hurricane belt it is rarely subjected to high winds to disturb the area.
Along with the variety of animals to be found in this diving paradise is a large wreck called the Hilma Hooker a 236 foot long Dutch Freighter that met its demise due to age and legal controversy. It lies in 100 feet of water and can be reached from shore. Lying on its side there are plenty of opportunities to explore and photograph this huge ship. You can even penetrate the wreck but it takes caution due to it not being prepared for sport diving prior to it sinking. It was not sunk intentionally but sank itself, or as rumor says it may have had help.
Hilma Hooker in Bonaire
When I noticed that the well known underwater photographer, Steven Frink, was hosting a photo tour to the Red Sea, I just had to get on board to not only experience the diving in that area but also pick up some pointers on using my Nikonos underwater camera.
It was a great trip as we spent an entire week aboard a dive boat that left the city of Sharm El Sheikh and traveled south almost two thirds the length of the sea diving at various islands along the way.
As we were headed back up North there was a debate as to if we should stop at the wreck site of a British WWll War Ship along the way. Some of the participants were cool to the idea but I expressed my love of diving wrecks and put in a strong bid to see it.
The Thislegrom, a 375 foot British Freighter that was carrying tanks, aircraft, jeeps, trucks, motorcycles, rifles, and a train, was anchored close to the western shore of the sea thinking it was safe. Unfortunately a German dive bomber located the ship and dropped two bombs directly into the ship and it sank very quickly.
Outside of a lot of damage to the middle of the ship most of the remainder is in pretty good shape along with its cargo. This may be why this ship is one of the most dived in the world. It's popularity is fueled by the variety of contents as well as the locomotive and cars that have rolled off the side into the sand.
Bedford Truck BSA Motorcycle
Locomotive
Walt and John, a couple of dive buddies I have been associated with for about 30 years, decided we would make plans to dive Truk Lagoon in Micronesia. All of us being avid wreck enthusiasts had heard that this location was the holy grail of wreck diving. Reason being that it was where "Operation Hailstorm" which was the name given to a raid by the U.S. Navy in 1944 to cripple the Japanese supply ships gathering in this remote Atoll in the Pacific. In a day and a half raid by our dive and torpedo bombers over 65 ships were sunk in the lagoon.
All these ships are still there loaded with all sorts of military equipment such as tanks, airplane parts, trucks, hospital and office supplies, mines, torpedoes, submarine parts, depth charges, cases of machine gun and rifle cartridges, along with the usual beer bottles in addition to sake servers.
Seeing John and Walt still lived in Ohio while I had relocated to Florida they would meet up with me in Truk. We started the planning about two years prior to the trip in order to save up the money to cover the expense. It would be a two week dive trip with the first week on a live aboard dive boat and the second week with the well known land based operation known as Blue Lagoon. This land based shop was owned and operated by Kimiuo Aisek, a native islander, who was 17 years old when the raid took place.
Route Map from Florida to Truk
Kimiuo related the story of him standing outside the cave that his family took refuge in during the raid. While he watched one of the planes dropped a bomb on a ship that was loaded with mines. He said the explosion was so great that it knocked the plane out of the sky. We dove that wreck by starting at the bow and as we continued toward the stern halfway back the ship ended.
Outside of the supply ships there was one destroyer and a submarine. We were told that the submarine was not destroyed by the planes but was so intent on submerging to avoid them that one of the crew left the hatch open and it flooded.
Walt and John over the Submarine
You can imagine how excited we were upon arrival in Truk and anxious to start diving into history. While on the live aboard dive ship we met with six other divers who were from New York, Texas, Japan and Scotland. We all however, had one common interest which was exploring as many wrecks as we could before returning to our home bases.
Four Engine Bomber and Interior
One of the rules of Truk is that no diving is allowed unless you have an island guide along with you. This practice was adhered to while diving from the live aboard by having one of the islanders accompany us to each dive site and diving with us. The main underlying reason for this was to prevent anyone from removing artifacts from the wrecks.
John and Walt Explore a Japanese Two Man Tank
What was amazing was how easy it appeared for the local island guide to locate the individual wrecks we were supposed to dive. We would travel to a particular wreck site and just by a few glances toward shore they would throw the anchor and be right on target for our dive.
John in a Japanese Zero Fuselage
We dove depths of from 30 feet up to 170 feet. Computers were just being introduced around that time but we were not using them yet. There was some skepticism in their reliability that we had not overcome during this trip. The boat was offering them to rent so the diver from New York opted to take one and his interest was to view the engine room on all the wrecks we investigated. He went in the water before we did and came out after us. This practice made us wonder if these computers didn't have some merit for divers that we should probably look into,
Much Like the one that Exploded, John explores the Mine Cargo
All together we dove 43 times in the two weeks we were there and came away completely saturated with the most rewarding trip any of us could have ever imagined. This is not the only area where military wrecks are available for diving but it sure has more of them to see in a reasonably small area
Wreck diving is not for everyone but if you have a small bone of exploration in your body and you also enjoy going under the surface of the water, wreck diving could be your passion. Because these champions of the waves are no longer on the surface you will have to visit Davie Jones Locker to learn just where they went and how they are doing since they left.
I hope this writing gives you some insight as to what wreck diving is all about and encourages you to take a swim on the wild side.
George