St. Lawrence
Seaway/Canada dive trip - July 2005
In July (July 21-24th) four Mudders (Gary, Chris, Al and Kerry) had the
chance to go up to Canada and dive the St. Lawrence Seaway (in the
Thousand Island area). It
ended up being a great trip - we made nine dives, eight of which were
on different wrecks and even had some "amusing" adventures. We
stayed at Caigers Country Inn (which technically is in Mallorytown,
Ontario).
We got up there a bit past noon on Thursday, and made a shore dive that
afternoon, to start to getting used to the current. This one was
at
the Ivy Lea Park, and we drifted under the large International bridge.
The
water was unusually warm. That first drift dive was at 77 degrees
(and all the other dives on the trip) were at 74 degrees. In
hindsight it was more wet suit conditions that dry suit. The viz
was a bit less than usual for the St. Lawrence, but typically we had at
least 40 feet viz.
The next day (Friday) we dove the “Keystorm” and then the
“America”. The Keystorm is nice wreck. The bow is up on a shoal
and is fairly shallow and you can descend down to the stern in about
115 feet of water. There are three holds which make easy entry into the
wreck, and it is actually resting on the shoal, and there is a space in
which you can actually swim under the wreck to get from one side to the
other. The America is a fun wreck in about 75 feet of water. It is near
the Singer Castle, and is essentially in the channel. That evening we
had a shore dive in Lock 28 and then the “Contestoga”. This
turned into the infamous
cornfield dive, but more on that later.
Saturday we did the “Lillian Parsons” and the “Gaskins”. The Lillian
Parsons is a very pretty wreck at about 70 feet. It was carrying
a load of coal. At the end of the wreck we had a LONG drift
past a couple of islands after which the boat picked us up. The
Gaskins was a nice mellow dive at around 70 feet. The upper deck
had collapsed so it was one of those wrecks in which you could do a
penetration and almost not realize that you were in the wreck.
That evening Gary, Chris, and Al did a shore dive on the Rothesay,
while I and three others did the Lock 28/Conestoga "again".
On Sunday we did the “Kingshorn” and the “Vickery”.
Personally, I think these two may have been my favorite dives. In many
ways they were similar. The Kingshorn was again a very fun and mellow
dive. It was around 90 feet, and I spent most of my time inside
the wreck. It's very, very open inside, and in many ways is
almost like a wooden wreck that you might see in a mermaid
cartoon. The Vickery was the so called leap of faith dive, and/or
the Titanic/King of the World dive. There is quite a bit of
current on the Vickery. You descend down to 30 feet onto a wall
and then "leap" off of it (in a Superman coasting position). A
bit of kicking and the current (assuming that you are descending to at
least 60 feet puts you right onto the bow. The bow is at 60
feet and the max depth you can get in the wreck is around 100
feet. This is again an excellent dive with a very fun penetration
aspect to it. Also, if you go to the bow and get into a "King of
the World" position, you'll be right in a ripping current. If you
weren't actually inside of this wreck, then most of the time you
were having to pull and
glide to get around. A very nice dive. The above picture
was taken by one of the fellow MUDDERs and shows Kerry hanging onto the
stern of the Vickery
Of course the most infamous part of the trip was of course Kerry's
cornfield dive.
Clicking on the link will get you to a brief description of it!
There are also several nice sites on the Web that have detailed
descriptions and photos of many of the wrecks that are in the Thousand
Island area
of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Below are just a couple of them:
site for
wrecks
in the St. Lawrence
another site
for wrecks in the 1000 Island area of the St. Lawrence
And of course:
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