The Great Lakes

[rsmith5894]

I just realized that when I think of the Great Lakes only one comes to mind...Lake Michigan! In another thread I asked about wrecks in Lake Michigan that I should dive, now I would like to hear about some great diving in the other Great Lakes!? It doesn't have to be a wreck, any great dives will do!

Thanks!

[Jack Hammer]

Originally Posted by rsmith5894

I just realized that when I think of the Great Lakes only one comes to mind...Lake Michigan! In another thread I asked about wrecks in Lake Michigan that I should dive, now I would like to hear about some great diving in the other Great Lakes!? It doesn't have to be a wreck, any great dives will do!

Thanks!

Besides Lake Michigan, so far the only other Great Lake I've dove is Lake Erie. I really enjoyed diving both the Admiral and the Dundee near Cleveland. I may make it up to Lake Superior sometime next season.

[PTAaron]

I don't know where you are located - so I'll assume near Michigan. Michigan has underwater preserves all along the coasts (all of them) that are filled with wrecks. I've only had a chance to dive one - the Strong in Lake Huron, which was pretty cool. We were also supposed to dive the Sport - but someone had stolen the mooring line.

Google Michigan Underwater Preserves and you'll get a ton of info. There is also a booklet that talks about many of the wrecks - I'll try to post info on where to get that later.

[Lake Michijim]

I've been up to Munising Michigan a few times. Thats lake Superior. A couple real good wrecks are the Smith Moore and the Selvik. Theres a bunch of wrecks like the Herman Hettler and the Manhatten which are debris piles and fairly shallow. Theres some fun shore diving too. Right off the High Schools parking lot theres an old pier crib. Up the highway theres a little park with a nice sand beach with a big drop off a couple hundred feet out.
All this and no zebra mussels. It's a pretty area too with rock formations, look up Miners Castle, and waterfalls. You can get sweet rolls at the local bakery that are like what was made during my long lost youth. Imagine one donut the same weight as a dozen Krispy Cremes!!! Two or three of those and you won't need to eat for the rest of the day. LOL. Munisings a good time. Try it you'll like it.

[h2odragon1]

For Lake Michigan dives that are not wreck dives, try the forest, or the caisons.
The forest is 80 ffw deep tree stumps from when that location was the shoreline, 7,000- 8,000 years ago.
The Caisons are a pile of the refuse from the Great Chicago Fire 1871. You can find pieces of china, and other items from that time. 45-50 ffw.

[rsmith5894]

The Caisons sounds really cool! I never knew they just dumped all of that stuff in the lake! Unbelievable!

[Clernix]

I am assuming The Great Lakes are very cold water diving. Is a dry suit a must? Or does a 7mm do the trick?

[Lake Michijim]

Originally Posted by Clernix

I am assuming The Great Lakes are very cold water diving. Is a dry suit a must? Or does a 7mm do the trick?

It depends. If you just dive in August and early September a 7MM is just fine. Before and after depends on your cold tolerance. Another consideration is how you get to the dive site and back. An open boat on an overcast day can chill you pretty good. It may be 85 on land, but more often then not it's considerably cooler out on the water. Remaining dry is a major advantage then.
A 7MM can take you a long way. I did it for years before getting my first dry suit. On my little boat I used to carry a 5 gallon igloo cooler with warm water in. I had a little hand pump I used to pump warm water in my suit. It really felt good on frozen hands. Those diving dry, but with wet gloves liked that too.
So, can it be done? Sure. You'll want to transistion into a dry suit asap though.

[scubadiver888]

Originally Posted by Clernix

I am assuming The Great Lakes are very cold water diving. Is a dry suit a must? Or does a 7mm do the trick?

I dive Lake Ontario (great number of wrecks there). Temperatures vary from as warm as 75F at the surface to 42F at 100 feet around August/September. If you don't go below the thermocline (70 feet give or take) you'll find temperatures in the fifties.

For some people that is drysuit diving. For me, I've been in 42F wet. I usually dive with a two piece 7mm (gives me 14 mm on the core), hood, gloves, etc. You can survive in water that cold with a wetsuit, assuming you are not doing 4 or 5 dives a day and you stay within recreational dive limits, i.e. no decompression diving. Your hands will get cold if you go below the thermocline.

[TJDiver]

Originally Posted by scubadiver888

I dive Lake Ontario (great number of wrecks there). Temperatures vary from as warm as 75F at the surface to 42F at 100 feet around August/September. If you don't go below the thermocline (70 feet give or take) you'll find temperatures in the fifties.

For some people that is drysuit diving. For me, I've been in 42F wet. I usually dive with a two piece 7mm (gives me 14 mm on the core), hood, gloves, etc. You can survive in water that cold with a wetsuit, assuming you are not doing 4 or 5 dives a day and you stay within recreational dive limits, i.e. no decompression diving. Your hands will get cold if you go below the thermocline.

Water temps in our local quarries below the thermocline are around 50-51 degrees F. We dive that in two-piece 5 mm wet suits, 7 mm hoods, and 5 mm gloves, and stay pretty comfy. I have done shore diving off Cape Ann, MA many moons ago, and also used a two-piece 5 mm suit back then, but I can't remember what the water temps were. It was in Oct. and Nov. tho, so I'm thinking it was pretty darned chilly. It's all a relative thing tho...I know a local guy here that ALWAYS dives a dry suit...even in the Caribbean!