Diving the S.S. Wisconsin

On May 17, 2008 my buddy Hunter Lacey visited us here in paradise valley. Hunter is from Montana and I assume they don’t have many shipwrecks. I got to take him out for his very first Great Lakes dive. We did two dives on the SS Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin is the best shipwrecks in the Chicago area, in my opinion. At 130 feet and a balmy 40F bottom temp, it is an aggressive dive. We had an amazing 50+ feet of visibility and flat lake conditions. We couldn’t have a better day for diving.

First dive we dropped down to the sand and entered the opening on the starboard side. There isn’t much room for two people to swim around in this area. So we looked around for a few minutes, then exited the same way we entered. From here we went to the stern of the wreck and looked at the prop. We were nearing out minimum gas time, so we headed to the deck and checked out the engine stack and then thumbed the dive. We performed a minimum deco ascent with a deep stop at 60 feet, with 30 second stops every 10 feet. We then hung out at 20 feet for 4 minutes. During our ascent, I noticed that my suit wasn’t dumping gas very fast. I shunned my manly ways and held onto the line to help control my ascent and get the gas out to prevent a runaway ascent. During our surface interval, I found that my Weezle undergarment had partially clogged the cuff dump on my suit. I now have some duct tape on the sleeve of the Weezle to prevent that from happening again. Total bottom time: 15 minutes, total run time 25 minutes, gas 25% Nitrox, water temp 41F.

After a surface interval of a hour and 15 minutes, we splashed in again. This time we dropped over the port side of the wreck and penetrated the hole created by the collision. Just to the left, after entering, we looked at the 1929 Chevrolet touring car that was cargo on the ship.

After checking that out, we pushed further into the wreck. After getting further inside, I noticed that the ship has started collapsing on herself. Some of the openings in the cargo hold seemed a little lower than other times I have been in. We exited an opening in the middle of the ship that lead to the deck. From there we further explored the deck. We hit minimum gas and thumbed the dive. Due to a short surface interval, we added a couple minutes to our 30 and 20 foot stop. Minimum deco was performed as before. Total bottom time: 15 minutes, total run time 31 minutes, gas 25% Nitrox, water temp 41F.

Overall, I had a blast on these dives. It was sunny and the lake was flat. The SS Wisconsin is one of my favorite shipwrecks. You can’t ask for anything better. Normally we do one dive with bottom times between 20-40 minutes and deco gas of 50% Nitrox. So it was a nice change to get two dives within recreational limits. I hope Hunter comes back to dive with us again.

Here is a video of us diving the SS Wisconsin.

Dive Safe,
Duane
Precision Diving

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