St.
Lawrence
Seaway
On Thursday, after dropping Samantha off at school and Bobo off at the doggy spa, we made our way to Richmond where we were picked up by Jon (the trip leader from our Truk & Palau trip) and much of the rest of the folks on the trip. We were fortunate to be put in a car (instead of the maxivan) with Tony. We spent the next 14 hours getting to know each other as we made our way to Canada. We stayed at the Caiger's Resort and Dove with Thousand Island Pleasure Diving.
After a big breakfast Friday morning, we hopped on two boats (tech divers on one, rec divers on the other) and hit our first dive site of the trip – the Keystorm. The Keystorm was carrying 2230 tons of bituminous coal on route from Genesee Dock at Charlotte NY on October 12, 1912 when she crossed over Outer Skow Island Shoal and sunk. This steel freighter lies south of the shipping channel off Mallorytown Landing and is resting in deeper water away from the shoal she hit.
The second dive of the day took us to the America – a steel drill barge that sunk June 20, 1932 due to an explosion.
For the night dive, we found ourselves at the Kingshorn, a wooden wreck sitting in about 90 feet of water. She is an old barge that sunk on April 27, 1897.
On Saturday we dove the Vickery and then tried our hand at a drift dive. The Vickery was a three-masted 136ft. schooner that struck a rock and sunk on August 17, 1889 while entering the American Narrows and hauling 61,000 bushels of wheat to the Wisers Distillery at Prescott, Ontario.
The drift dive ended up being more of a cardio workout than a drift as the current was opposite on the bottom as it was on the surface. If nothing else, we stayed warm as we swam along the wall, looking at the various geological formations.
The last day was the took us to the Jodery – *the* wreck of the trip. The Roy A. Jodrey, a ship hauling iron ore, sank Nov. 21, 1974. The 640-foot ship, which split in half, rests at a depth of 242 feet (with her bow at around 150 ft). The craft sank in about five hours, within view of the Coast Guard station. All 29 crew members were rescued.
Given the depth, the wreck was obviously a tech dive. We planned to dive to 175 ft for 18 minutes before beginning our ascent with a total dive time of 49 minutes. We had been deeper than that on the San Francisco Maru in Truk, but we had warm, clear, blue water to dive in there. It was much colder (58 degrees) with visibility of about 30 ft. It was interesting how the effects of nitrogen narcosis seemed more enhanced in the colder water. Regardless, the wreck was everything you thought it would be. We swam around the bow and looked over to see the hole in the starboard side of the ship. We ascended up the rock wall and completed our deco obligation under the boat. The experience made the trip for us. We can’t wait to do it again next year.
The final dive of the trip was on the Kingshorn again. It was cool
to see it during the day and was a relaxing way to end the trip.
