Milwaukee Dive Trip 2004

It never fails… We pick a weekend day in the middle of July and it turns out to be the crappiest day of the month. All the way up on Saturday morning we we sure that the trip would be cancelled due to high winds and waves. Every flag we saw was straight out and flapping madly. Our first view of the lake from the Milwaukee river bridge was not comforting either. The lake was covered with whitecaps and large waves could be seen crashing into the breakwall. We were waiting for the call that the dive was cancelled, but to our astonishment, the captain said we were going anyway. Our first view of the Diver’s Delight made us a little apprehensive. The boat doesn’t look all that big. It is a 28 foot custom designed open dive boat which resembles a large john-boat with a small superstructure at the stern. The boat has two humongous outboard motors at the stern totaling 450 HP. There is a center rack for tanks/BCs and a small bench running along each side of the rack. There is essentially no dry storage and little in the way of creature comforts. Of course with those humongous outboards normally the ride out to the dive site is so short you don’t have time to do all that much sitting. In our case, though, it was so rough with 4 foot waves that the boat could only crawl along at maybe 10mph. Still it was faster than the Len-der! By the time we got to the first dive site we were thoroughly and totally soaked. Waves were crashing over the bow and washing all down the deck. No wonder the deck is so clean! Some of us wore our masks to keep the spray out of our eyes. We went out wearing our wetsuits so all we had to do at the site was put on our BCs. The 2 divemasters helped us on with our fins and mask at the bow exit points and then you backrolled into the water.

The first dive site was the wreck of the Prins Willem V. This is a medium sized freighter which sank in 1954. She is currently lying on her starboard side in 85 feet of water. She is very intact and is quite a dramatic wreck. The propeller is missing, but you can still see the massive rudder assembly. The name of the ship can just be made out on the stern. Penetration of the cabin areas is possible. The holds are wide open for anyone to see. The holds appear to be full of barrels, but we learned that this was not cargo, rather they were used in an abortive attempt to raise the vessel many years ago. The wreck is sitting in a depression in the hard clay bottom. The current has washed out the clay from one side of the wreck and now portions are actually 5-6 feet below the surrounding lake bottom. The wreck is completely encrusted with zebra mussels.

The visibility on the wreck was about 20-30 feet and the temperature was in the mid 50s.

The second wreck site was the 906 Dredge. This is a dredging barge which flipped over and sank sometime in the 50s as well. The wreck lays upside down in 70 feet of water. There is quite a bit of debris around the wreck including the large crane arm and the winches and cables and reels for positioning the dredge. Those with lights were able to swim up under the wreck and see all the equipment inside. Since it is upside down there is less silt and fewer zebra mussels. Several large burbot were seen inside the wreck. These are large lazy fish that resemble a 2 foot long catfish with only one whisker. They allow divers to approach them if you move slowly. The visibility on this wreck was a little less, say about 10 feet at best. The temperature was the same except on this wreck there was a thermocline about 5 feet off the bottom.

When we returned to the boat, the crew took our weightbelts and BCs off at the side of the bow and then we swam back to the stern ladders. Exiting the water in 4 foot waves on a small ladder is sure fun…. NOT!

On the way in the crew passed out cookies, pretzels, pop, etc. What with the rough conditions very few divers were interested in doing anything except staring at the horizon. Certainly eating anything was way low on the priority list.

All in all, the day turned out pretty good. The boat turned out to be quite seaworthy and the crew did their jobs well. I don’t know how it would have been if we had filled the boat with 14 divers (we only had 8). That would have been a bit tricky in those conditions with 10 divers doing a safety stop and trying to get on the boat all at once.

Bottom Line…I would go on another trip with Diver’s Delight. In fact we are already talking about booking another trip to do the Milwaukee Car Ferry and/or the Northerner. The cost of the trip was $55 per diver and $7 per tank used.