Shipwrecks
Civil Disobedience Wreck Diving
Text by Scott Stitt I
t feels like we’ve been dropping forever. Descending through 150 feet (46m), I steal a glance upwards where the brilliant sunshine is now just a faint green glow. We’re enveloped by an oppressive blackness that mocks my Sartek HID video lights. The visibility is good though. We can see our thin guideline well below. It’s a hopeful sign that our target – a shipwreck – will be in clear view. Still, the bottom is at 300 feet (92m), same as a 30-story building, and these deep waters of Lake Ontario just keep getting blacker.
At 200 feet (61m) I glance over at my good friend and dive buddy, Michel ‘Frogman’ Guerin, a highly intelligent and capable person who inspires confidence, especially when you’re doing something, well, dangerous. He’s rigged like me. We’re wearing so much gear that on deck it’s hard to stand. Twin OMS, large
38 Magazine
More than a decade ago a group of technical divers made a series of ‘unofficial’ deep dives on the heritage wrecks of Hamilton and Scourge in Lake Ontario. This is their story
volume steel tanks are on our backs, we carry powerful floodlights, and under each arm is an 85 cubic foot deco bottle. I’m also carrying a video camera in an Amphibico housing. Our descent line is anchored with a 10-pound weight, at the surface a plastic reel doubles as a float. A Zodiac and our larger dive boat float nearby. We can’t pull on the line or hang from it; it’s a guide only. Ordinarily we’d grapple into the wreck with a heavy line and then tie off the dive boat to it, much safer, more secure, but it’s not an option today. Damage to the wreck could be high. That’s unacceptable considering our objective, the Hamilton and the Scourge, wrecks that are unquestionably historical treasures. So we’re using the lightweight gear, and assume the risk.
As we drop below 250 feet (76m) I scan around for a mast but see nothing. Here the line disappears
The 60-foot
(18m) Scourge photographed by an ROV,
from which the illustration was made
into a milky layer of silt like I’ve never seen before. Visibility drops to 3 feet (0.9m). Michel’s light is the only indicator of his position as we reach a knot in the line telling us we’re 15 feet (4.5m) from the bottom. We trim out and advance cautiously, looking, but mostly feeling our way along. At 290 feet (88m) we make contact with something wooden, obviously man-made. It’s a ship’s railing. We’re definitely on an old vessel of some kind but exactly where we can’t say, much less if she’s the ship we’re hoping her to be. I move to the left following the rail and Michel follows. After a couple of metres the rail becomes a lifeboat davit extending out from the ship’s transom. So, we’re on a sailing ship’s port rail, at the stern. We need to see her armaments or figurehead, in the other direction, if we’re to make positive identification. We turn, and I follow the ‘Frogman’, doing my best
Image: Richard Schlecht/National Geographic Stock
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