ADAM HAYDOCK

The last dive of the trip took us to the Middle Island Sinkholes just north of Alpena Michigan.  I was telling the other divers about this one and that how I was absolutely fascinated with this oddity as the bottom floor is carpeted with a bacteria that thrives off of digesting sulfur and not from the typical offerings lake Huron usually has for its plants, fish, and bacteria. The bacteria itself is maroon in color and survives utilizing a chemosynthesis process instead of other more common processes like photosynthesis

The Karst region and the underwater sinkhole itself is an interesting site as it has spring water coming from deep inside the earth which might provide some evidence of life existing deep inside the earths crust.  This and other sinkholes in the area have these purple bacteria mats believed to be some of the early forms of life on our planet and are studied by NOAA and NASA to learn about how life on other planets might exist.  The reasoning behind this is that the existence of these bacteria mats survive off of the no oxygen high-sulfur content solution at the bottom of this sinkhole. These Extremaphiles have been noted in the mariana trench some 30,000 ft underwater, under a mile of ice in antartic lakes, and here in Lake Hurons Karst region.  The Karst region has been dated back to around 400 million years that started from sediment deposits which formed these karst formations that are enbedded in this region presently. This ultimately has included the existence of the bright yellow sulfur water at the bottom of the sinkhole. There is a lot of these purple cyanobacterical mats that limit themselves to growing within the groundwater re surging from underground and thrive by a chemosynthesis process.

This is my second time visiting the Middle island Sinkhole and I wanted to check out the bed plane section along with taking the other divers to the sink where the yellow sulfur water is located.   As we descend down to a depth of 70 ft we reach the chemocline and the maroon bed planes of the bacteria come into view.

What I found even more fascinating is how the bacteria mats formed a vertical protruding feature reaching up which might be due to some sort of gas coming from the depths.

We continue up the ridge and down into some small cavern like entrances that did not go anywhere yet some of these depressions contained crystal clear yellow sulfur water with dead fish at the bottom which might have been caused by these fish swimming into the sulfur or from natural reasons and just fell into the depression area and are decaying slowly due to the no oxygen solution.

FLICKR: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157633283833110/

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2009/20090012.pdf


Last day of diving and most of us were looking to get back to Milwaukee and Chicago at a decent hour so we made the decision to dive the Cornelia Windiate and the sinkholes of middle island. After working through some communication challenges we set a course for the Windiate. The windiate is at 185 ft of water.  She was carrying thousands of bushels of wheat which is sealed inside the cargo holds inside the Windiate.

Shipwreck of the Cornelia Windiate

 She was bound for New York and made its final course in the ice and the challenges that the Great Lakes unrelentingly deliver.  The Windite's story is that it was thought to have perished in lake Michigan until it was discovered in the 1980s past the Straits of Mackinaw in Lake Huron. . She is Frozen in time almost perfectly in tact and yet another Ghostship with the lives of the crew that she took with her under the ice where she was delicately placed where she sit now under and at the bottom of where our charterd dive boat has stopped on this calm and sunny day

We gear up and giant stride into the water for our last day of diving. We descend down the mooring line past the drapped rigging of the masts to the usual 165ft. of depth at the deck in 37 degree water and continue to circumnavigate the windiate.

One of the first things I notice is the life boat on the side of the wreck that was never used and gives this wreck some very interesting perspective and charter to the historic ghost ships of the Great Lakes.  The steering wheel is still on the windiate which was incredible to see and very appreciated as artifacts seem to disappear from ships.

Shipwreck of the Cornelia Windiate

I continue to work to the stern and proceed down the spiral stairs into the cabin compartment below.

Spiral Stairs of the Windiate (this is not my photo) this is NOAA's photo on TBscuba.com

 My helmet lights barely light up the room but I noticed a chair and some broken pieces of wood laying around the ambient light came through the windows and for a moment in my nitrous rave party state of mind I was in from the narcosis, I thought to myself about what the captain and crew were looking at in 1875 when they looked out through these windows the last day that the windiate sailed Lake Huron.

Shipwreck of the Cornelia Windiate

I work my way outside and I look for my dive buddy as he waiting while I went I to the cabin quarters. I look to the stern look up and around and up the mooring line but I do not see him anywhere. As I started to think that he shot up to the surface I felt a tap on my shoulder And he was hovering over me the whole time!!! Haha. I was startled and relieved that nothing happened.



Shipwreck of the Cornelia Windiate

Shipwreck of the Cornelia Windiate

What I do know is that I can appreciate what the members of the crew on these wooden ships had to go up aganist with the rough winter seas on the great lakes 150 years ago with no coast guard or modern technology on their side.   They had their compass, map, and the will to survive in order to get the job done.  If the objective was to deliver grain, wood, steel, or other valuable merchandise, The blood, sweat, and tears that the crew went through to get the job done helped to build this countries foundational economy even before the Civil War started.  These engineers that developed these ships and the mariners that set sail in these conditions, helped to set that standard that we have today and these ghost ships of the great lakes are a perfect example that fairy tale happy endings are only found in some massage parlors unless you work hard at what you believe in.

FLICKR: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/sets/72157645331007112/

 Thunder Bay Scuba : http://tbscuba.com/ 

The next dive we did on this fine Saturday is the Shipwreck of the Typo.  The sun was trying to push through but the water continued to lay down for us allowing for glass conditions out on the lake and a nice swift ride to the wrecksite.  This wreck is resting at around 185 ft of water at the bottom of Lake Huron which was hit by another steamer and took four crew members with her along with her cargo of coal down to a depth of a 185ft.  The forward bow and top masts along with the respective rigging are all in tact with the forward bow of the typo sitting upright looking like a perfect example of what a eerie ghost ship would look like.

Shipwreck of the Typo

The dive will be our second deep dive of the day so I set my tables to 180ft. with a TDT of 41 minutes.  My total bottom time was only 15 minutes....again.  So much time, prep, money, and luck go into this and the smallest incompetency can not only ruin a dive but also put yourself at risk for injury or death....just for around 15-20 minutes to freeze and view a shipwreck, I must really like this...but do I? regardless, here we are at the pinnacle of my diving capability about to dive a second 180 ft. dive on air.  We giant stride off the boat and make our way to the mooring to descend down to the depths where the typos forward bow is resting perfectly in tact.

As we descend down into the hazy depths we get to about 110 ft and the top of the mast can be seen notating the ghostly appearance that stands suspended in water by a circular round tree log of a mast that fades away into the depths below.  As we continue to descend we start to see the foggy outline of a shipwreck becoming more detailed and clear as we get closer and closer to the deck at around 165ft. 

I looked to my left and I can see the ships mid section ripped open like a pinata spewing out its inner intestinal coal remains and piles of shredded wood from the damage that the typo took back in 1899.  I was reaching a new pinnacle depth of 180 ft which is the maximum depth I want to go without further training and trimix.  I made my way to the bow and came back around missing the bell completely and descending into the cargo hold of the Typo.  

 Every time I equalized my ears I could hear a huge drum beating and it would fade away shortly after, I thought I reached a new level of narcosis but it turns out that a diesel salty freighter was passing us in the distance yet the sound of the 100 BPM engine can be heard from below.   So here I am 180 ft. down hearing drum sounds in a ship that mimics a haunted pirate ship and about to enter into the cargo holds, that was an experience.

I make into the cargo holds and I am just not able to hold the camera right while hearing these drum sounds and making sure not to silt out the holds.  The mid ship was open and exposed so I came out from the exposed exit and start to ascend back to the line to follow my decompression procedure.  I was thinking about how amazing this ship was and I thinking that this one was so awesome that I am considering the Typo to be my new top three ship wrecks that I have visited ever since I started shipwreck diving. 

We got up early to get a early start on Lake Huron so we can beat the afternoon rain showers if the rain happens to show up.  We make our way over to Rockport once again and the waters edge looks beautiful!!! Lake Huron has laid down for us and its absolutely calm conditions. WHAAA!! We couldn't have asked for better conditions on the lake than what we have now in front of us.

We set out to visit the first shipwreck which was built in 1848, The Defiance!  This 2 masted schooner measures out to 115 ft. in length and she is presently resting upright and mysteriously intact in 185ft. of water.  She brought grains back and forth until she was hit by the Audubon in October of 1854. Speed was always of the essence back than but the Audubon was carrying railroad iron tracks so when the defiance hit the Audubon's mid section in fog, she had little time to react and brought both of the schooners to their demise.  The event took both of the boats down only a few miles from each other and luckily nobody died on either boat. I went to visit the Audubon last year and this year was my time to finally see the world class historic wrecks with their masts still upright and intact. There is also a theory that the captains made an insurance claim for money as they would be able to get their load and ship paid from a "disaster", the Defiance has little evidence of a crippling impact, and iron ore is a lot more valuable than grain back than so there might have been a good ole "reach around" on the insurance company of the 1850s...I cant prove that though!!...soooo..yeeaaa..anyway, I'm sure if the captains put on diving gear today and saw this wreck, they would be surprised in a lot of different ways.

My dive tables were set up for a bottom time of 180ft for 15 minutes and a decompression procedure based on a 1.2. ATA and an oxygen stop at 15 ft. Total dive time came out to be 39 minutes. We geared up and went through our start drills. Once in the water we completed the S Drill with a bubble check both at 15 ft and at the bottom to ensure we don't have any leaks. We descend down and the water appears to have a film of algae as we descended into the depths of Lake Huron. The temperature dropped as an eerie cross figurine appeared in the distance along with another large circular log standing upright. These are the tip tops of the masts!! Finally, we made it to these wrecks as I have been waiting years to get to them. The deck of the defiance starts to materialize and the visibility opens up in the 37 degree waters as we hover over the deck at 165 ft. I get just under the deck to get a couple pictures and I get to a max depth of 170ft. The nitrogen narcosis is strong at that depth so it makes picture taking difficult. We navigate around the wreck and made our way up to start our decompression schedule. Our dive buddies ran into some regulator complications but were able to work out a plan to ensure they were to complete their decompression obligations.  We got on the boat and I thought to myself about the amazing experience I just had but how short it was. Off to the TYPO!! 

 It was a long ride to get up to Alpena Michigan after work and with losing an hour on the road due to the eastern time thing, it made me wonder if they think they can change  daylight savings time, but they cant change the time zones?....move them a bit more east or lets just go back to the counting moons or something...silly president.  We got to Alpena around 2am and unfortunately woke up our other two dive buddies as we banged on the door to get into the cottage due to no keys.  opps..  

We woke a bit LATE and made our way over to the shop, got breakfast, and made our way over to the harbor to make our first two dives of the day.  The waves were about a foot by three feet and cloudy but optimistic conditions so it was a go.  We get on the water leave the harbor and as we are leaving the harbor the boat starts to run into some challenges. We ended up having to turn around in a plume of carbon smoke back to the harbor to assess the situation and begin the repair. After some disagreements and some challenges within the groups opinion on the assessment and the execution of the repair we decided to leave that behind and scope out some prospective dive sites.  After a while I was able to find a couple of shore dives in Presque Isle which were nice to swim out to and check out.

The first wreck is called the Albany which came to shore in the early 1900s and was quickly torn apart by storms preceding its resting place with no lives lost.  Her engine was salvaged a few years after her foundering. The next shipwreck was the North bay wreck which has some unique history in itself that includes a gentleman who was sawing up the shipwrecks wood for furniture.  He ended up getting arrested and the north bay wreck got its name.   I am sure that would have been a pretty penny for him back in the day.

This wreck was nestled in a super calm section inside of a bay in Presque Isle.  It was a nice place to not only swim out to and relax while enjoying the loons speaking to each other about the unusual human swimming in the frigid cold water.  Both of the wrecks were keelson remains, floor boarding, and parts of side panel and haul skeletal remains held together with fasteners.  

Its fun to swim out to the shipwrecks and check out what is out there as well as to learn about the history of the ships themselves to see how great the workmanship and time that was put in to build some of these boats.

The day itself turned out to be a good one as we were able to do two shore free dives and scope out some interesting places but the next day is going to be the main event as we are planning to visit the Defiance and the Typo.

Sunday morning we got up early to start off on going into two caves right on the property of Spring Mill State Park, Donaldson and Bronson caves .  We show up to the office where they keep the boats for their tours into upper twin cave and check in with the staff.  We continued down into the section where the two caves connect from the collapsed sink and to our left is upper twin and to our right is Bronson cave, or so I thought it was Bronson.  We enter this cave and continue down the passage looking back at the nice waterfall next to the entrance. 

We were confused by this and decided to exit the cave and go to the Donaldson entrance where we knew the cave was open.

We drove up to the parking lot and walked to the entrance of Donaldson cave where we first explored the side passages of the cave before entering the main river passage.  we climbed over a waterfall and got to a second waterfall that appeared to be a bit more challenging.

Eventually we traversed the side wall and climbed around the waterfall to tie a handline for anyone else that needed to get to the top of the falls.  I should have attempted to climb the falls as later we found out they were quite easy to climb out. 

After a break outside we went up stream passing a series of nice small waterfalls till we got to the entrance of river Cave.  This cave is not as long as Endless cave but the passages appeared to be larger in size.

 The entrance was rather interesting which consisted of three pools cavers had to swim through with the depth appearing to be around 6 to 7 feet in some places.  We had a life boat and some of of us wore dive fins to shuttle non swimmers and gear in the raft.  Once we got to the last pool we ditched out fins and boat to traverse through the cave.

We continue to follow the large stream passage and go through large rooms with monster breakdown boulders we had to climb over.  I was impressed with this cave as it reminded me of a horizontal TAG cave with these large boulders and the passage we were traversing through.

We continue on into a duck walking section and come up to one of the longest straight line passages I have ever seen, I believe this passage is around 600 ft in length and has a stream passage to traverse through which was impressive to see.  the passage started to get smaller and the water got deeper as we got towards the back of the cave.  We came to a small breakdown section with  formation room and eventually came up on a section where we had to squeeze through a waterfall to get to the final section of the cave.  We could hear the water below us raging away but the breakdown around us prevented us from continuing.  There was a spot that appeared to be a potential dig but we decided to turn back and head out of the cave. 

This was a fantastic trip and a fantastic day of caving so we want to thank the DNR for allowing Restricted access to these special places.  We had a blast and made sure we collected a bunch of garbage from the cave that was brought in from run off.