Niagara Dive Association divers rescue stranded man 110 feet down Members of the Niagara Dive Association traveled to Michigan the first weekend in August to dive on the wrecks of Upper Lake Michigan. Not only did the NDA members explore a number of Straits of Mackinaw shipwrecks, they ended up saving the life of an unnamed American diver trapped at the bottom of Lake Michigan. "We went out in Jim and Pat Stayner's boat, the Sand Dollar, (one of two chartered by the club) to the wreck of the Cedarville, a 600 foot steel freighter lying upside-down in 100 feet of water just a couple of miles downstream of the Mackinaw bridge," explained NDA member Anthony DeBoer "The wreck is too big to see all of in one dive. There were mooring buoys at both ends and amidships. I (with my buddies) did an uneventful dive on the bow, although it was dark and visibility was poor, then cast off with the intention of tying up to the idle midship buoy to accumulate some surface time and wait for the dive boats presently using the stern buoy to move off before our second dive." Back on the surface, DeBoer and his buddies were surprised when an obviously-agitated diver popped to the surface near them. The man was completely out of his BC and tank. "As we helped him into the boat, we got his story. His buddy was trapped inside the wreck, just under a porthole," he continued. "This fellow had managed to squeeze through, pushing his tank ahead of him (and swim to the surface), but his (bigger) buddy had been unable to follow. They had gone "just a little way" inside and had become unable to find their way back out." Realizing that a diver was trapped inside the wreck below them and quickly running out of air, the NDA swung into action. The captain of a nearby charter boat put on a tank over his clothes, grabbed a small pony bottle and swam into the 40°F water to reach the stranded diver. Meanwhile the club sent down two of their cave divers Dave Mekker (Stoney Creek, Ontario) and Anthony DeBoer (Richmond Hill, Ontario) to extricate the man. With reels and lights they entered the Cedarville, and began looking for the passageway that would get them to the lost diver. "Having my buddy Dave and his 100 watts behind me helped a lot," said Anthony DeBoer." The passage headed downward first, into the wreck, then opened up. I looked up and saw daylight shining through portholes, and smiled knowing I was in the right place. I ran line upward toward them, saw the diver under one of the portholes, and came up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and showed him the guideline. He didn't need much more prompting; he was off like a shot, following the line with the extra tank under his arm." Although the rescue was handled quickly, all of the divers required a decompression stop. The NDA club and the crew of the Sand Dollar had hung six tanks and a pure oxygen bottle on a line under their boat and everyone was able to come to the surface without incident. The rescued diver returned to his charter boat and the NDA heroes to theirs; everyone then returned to port. NDA's Barb and Ian Marshall talked to the rescued diver upon reaching land, "He said that he was banging his light on the hull of the wreck in the hopes that someone would come over and investigate and help him out. As it turns out, he said he saw two divers go right past him and took no notice of the situation." The NDA rescue was the bright spot in what has been a bleak summer for Ontario divers. There have been a number of fatal dive accidents in the Great Lakes. Thunder Bay diver and former Ontario Underwater Council (OUC) regional director, Don Edward went missing while making a deep dive on a Lake Superior shipwreck. The body of the 50 year old man has not been recovered. Meanwhile, the OUC has set up a trust fund in memory of Don Copper, a dive charter boat operator who died while diving near Brockville earlier this year.   Twin underwater spin in Kingston As the city of Kingston, Ontario becomes an increasingly popular freshwater dive destination, more and more wreck aficionados are asking charter boat captains to give them a Kingston double dip. A Kingston Double dip? That's two quality dives in one morning on two different deep-water wrecks. "If the conditions are right, there is no better day out on Lake Ontario than making your first dive on the wreck of the George Marsh," said Cliff Rowe, owner of the Limestone Dive Centre in Kingston, Ontario. "Then, motoring over to the Comet and seeing something totally uniquetwo upright, intact paddlewheels!" The last time Kingston was described as anything but sleepy was back in the early days of the 19th century when the city was briefly Canada's capitol. Kingston was strategically built at the crossroads of Lake Ontario, the Rideau Canal and the St. Lawrence River and back then it was considered to be the centre of Upper Canada. Those were its heydays, and the importance of the city was seen along its waterfront and in its very active lake port. Where there are boats sailing without navigational equipment, radios or proper charts, there are bound to be mishapsand accidents, over time, create fabulous dive sites. Cliff Rowe agrees that wreck divers are well-equipped ambulance chasers, albeit a century after the mishaps! "We (Kingston) have been discovered by American divers," Rowe explained. "The popular wrecks off New York and New Jersey are hard to reach. The seas can be rough and the shallow wrecks have been beaten up quite badly." "The Marsh," he continued " is less than an hour's boat ride from the Olympic Basin (beside the Kingston Penitentiary in downtown Kingston). The wreck is in good shape, and the conditions, especially in the late summer and fall are usually perfect for diving." Many of the city's Lake Ontario wrecks, including the Comet and the Marsh, lie between three large islandsAmherst, Simcoe and Wolf. There is little current and the area is well off the main shipping lanes. The Preserve Our Wreck (POW) conservation association has placed mooring blocks beside both the Marsh and the Comet. On a warm summer's day, two or three dive boats will tie off and wait their turn. The Marsh is a massive wooden three masted schooner. Built in 1882, the ship worked the eastern end of the lake hauling coal from New York to Ontario. In 1917 she went down in a sudden early August windstorm. She sank upright, falling to the bottom within sight of the Simcoe Island's lighthouse. According to POW research, running the Marsh was a family operation. On the day she sank the captain had on board his wife, five of their seven children, a brother, his wife and two nephews. Tragically, only two people survived the sinking. Some of the dishes and tools used by the captain and family can still be seen by divers. They lie among the remains of the Marsh. The visibility tends to be very goodby Great Lake standards. Fifty feet is the norm, although on some occasions, one can stand on the platform of a dive boat and see the shimmering shape of the Marsh 85 feet below. Sunlight reaches the deck of the Marsh, but lights are useful to bring colour into this gray world. From stem to stern the wooden hull is still intact. Thanks to the work of conservation minded divers there are still pieces of the Marsh left to see. China, tools, mast rigging, and a windarm on the bow make this an interesting ship to explore and photograph. The intact ship's wheel stands ramrod straight, bolted to the wooden deck. The wheel is almost completely coated with zebra musselsthe only bare spots are on the top two handles, worn clean by divers. While divers have respected the Marsh, the mussels have not. In days gone by the Marsh's dead eyes (round wooden sail bolts) stared up at divers from the deck and rail. Nowadays, the pesky mussels have turned the skull shaped blocks into shell covered balls. Mussels are everywhere. They cling to the wreck and they cling to each other. Living mussel icicles have fallen onto the deck and their weight is cause for concern. One of the big attractions of the Marsh is that it is a relatively deep dive (for scuba) yet on most days it is not that difficult a dive. Back on the boat divers use their surface interval to change tanks, reload film and compare notes. It is just a five-minute run to the Comet but, underwater, Oooh-la-la! what a difference two miles make. The Marsh has the sleek lines of a Great Lakes schooner. The upright Comet has a look that is totally its own. This ship was built in 1848 to carry passengers and freight on Lake Ontario. Powered by two massive side wheel paddles, the wide, bulky boat muscled, churned and slapped its way through the water. Difficult to manoeuvre in high winds, the Comet sank after striking a schooner during a windstorm in 1861. The first thing divers see when coming down the line next to the Comet are her two huge unbroken paddlewheels. Straddling the wreck, each paddlewheel rises 25 feet up from the sandy bottom. When the lights of divers play over the paddlewheels, they look, in the half-light like water borne Ferris wheels. Bits of the stern engine lie on the collapsed deck and two drive trains are draped across the top of the rubble. Diving under the lower deck one can see the ship's once powerful boilers. Fish abound, schooling among the buckets of the paddlewheels. So accustomed to seeing divers, they barely move when divers use underwater scooters to tour the wreck. "There are no other intact paddlewheel wrecks that we know of," said Rowe. "We have a third wreck nearby that was a paddlewheeler, but the wheel is badly broken." The Comet and Marsh are visited from May until November, be it on a Limestone dive boat, or with any of the many other captains and shops that service the city. Limestone Divers is a full service shop and dive boat operation. They supply air, nitrox and trimix to qualified divers. The extended bottom time that nitrox gives means that divers are able to leisurely see two of Canada's classic wrecks. The dive shop currently runs four dive boats out of Kingston. The boats' individual capacities range from four persons to 16. The larger boat is in constant demand from dive clubs, who covet it for a weekend double dip. "We do recommend booking ahead, however we do keep our small boat running almost constantly, so we are able to meet the needs of our walk-in clientele. Limestone Dive Centre, 6 Yonge Street, Kingston, ON K7M 1E4 Phone: 800-286-DIVE Website: WWW.divekingston.com Kingston Diving Centre Inc., 4052 Bath Road, Kingston, ON K7M 4Y4 Phone: 800-UW-KINGS or (613) 634-8464 Website: www.canadiandiver.com   Dream Dive for charity Usually people dig deep for charity, but, in the case of Baila Goldfarb, it was a case of diving deep for charity. Two years ago, DIVER Magazine associate editor Stephen Weir and Undersea Explorer TV producer Jim Kozmik donated a dive to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Each September the McMichael holds its Woodchopper's Ball, a fund raising evening that includes a silent auction. Baila Goldfarb, a Toronto public school principal, purchased the DIVER Magazine trip. She and her dive buddy accompanied Stephen Weir and Jim Kozmik on an expedition to the Marsh and the Comet.   Change of Date If you were planning to come to Toronto in the Spring to attend the annual Underwater Canada dive show, you had better start thinking fall. Underwater Canada is being moved to October 26-28, 2001. The change of date is just one of many changes that have been made to the venerable show. Underwater Canada 2001 will be held at the International Plaza on Dixon Road, across the road from the Congress Centre where Underwater Canada has been staged for the past two years.