r/ShipwreckPorn

Built in 1902, the 330 foot long steel railroad car ferry Milwaukee spent decades bypassing Chicago's busy rail yards by transporting entire train cars across Lake Michigan. October 22, 1929, The Milwaukee's captain, 'Heavy weather' Mckay made the decision to leave the safety of Milwaukee's port and sail straight into the teeth of a fierce storm. Not long after leaving, the decision to return to Milwaukee was made but they would never make port, succumbing to the waves with all hands lost, about 52 souls. The vessel was found in 1972, sitting upright in 120' feet of water 7 miles north of it's namesake city. Today the wreck is a favorite destination for advanced divers. The day these images were captured the visability was very good for the site, about 60 feet.

#Shipwreck #GreatLakes #LakeMichigan #HistoryAlive #ScubaDiving #CalKothrade #CarferryMilwaukee #TecDiving

Do you guys know of any wrecks that are still buoyant because of trapped air, causing them to stay suspended slightly above the sea floor, near the surface of the water, or even stick out of the water?
I know of the PAK 1 in Thailand and a couple of others but I'd love to find more!

On April 20, 1909, the wooden steamer EBER WARD struck a heavy ice floe in Lake Michigan and sank. The WARD was grain-laden from Milwaukee to Port Huron and about six miles west of Mackinaw City. She sank in three minutes. It was early morning and unfortunately five of her crew were below asleep and went down with her. The remaining crew of ten or eleven were on deck at the time and made it to the yawl boat. They were rescued by the steamer BENNINGTON.

The Steamer EBER WARD sits quietly in 145 feet of cold water, just five miles west of the Mackinac bridge. Because this is the narrow chokepoint where Lakes Michigan and Huron meet, there can often be a good deal of current through this area. The one time I dove this popular wreck, there was plenty of current moving from starboard to port across the site. It seems that my diving guardian angels, whomever they may be, while always keeping me safe from potentially dangerous situations, enjoy making my dives more difficult than they need be. There was lots of current.

For six straight days we had been humping our heavy tanks and cameras on and off the dive boat, with long walks from our trucks down docks and piers to the charter boat every morning and back again every afternoon. Our evenings were spent squishing air into our afore mentioned tanks from a portable compressor in a small trailer, until the sun went down. All this in preparation for the following day's adventures, where we would battle the elements of wind, sun, water and current in search of incredible shipwreck photos, again.

We had not been eating as healthy as we might have (think lots of grilled red meat) and we had been consuming more beer and bourbon than water...much more. I tell you all this, so you might appreciate my condition when I made my decent down the line to the awaiting EBER WARD, battling the incessant current I kept hoping would disappear nearer the bottom, but never did.

I did manage to snap the best photo of the trip, out of 14 wrecks that week and one of my all-time favorite photos to this day, in the final moments of this dive. I had made my way back to the bow, where the up-line was vibrating violently back and forth through the water, a consequence of the dive boat riding some very large wind-driven waves 110 feet above us. There I noticed two of my buddies inspecting the three anchors which make up one of the best highlights of the wreck. All three anchors are still right where they were the day the ice stove in her bow, putting her on the bottom in ten minutes, taking five of her crew with her. One anchor lies on the deck near the port side, another type hangs from the starboard side, and the third, a small and rare 'mushroom' style anchor remains snugged up tight to the hawsehole on the port bow, about half way to the keel.

#LakeMichigan #GreatLakes #ScubaDiving #GreatLakesShipwreck #EberWard #CalKothrade #UnderwaterPhotography #Ikelite #CanonCameras #StraitsDiving #HistoricalShipwreck