I need to tread carefully with this post, given the parties involved...
I went diving on Lake Michigan today. My LDS' boat was booked up all weekend, so I went with a competitor. The wrecks were 85ft and 74ft to the keel. There has been a lot of wind for the past few days, so the lake was pretty churned up. Captain said viz was probably going to be pretty bad.
As he's giving up the briefing on the first wreck (a cleaned up 200ft car ferry specifically sunk for divers/fish habit more than 10 years ago), he is talking about people penetrating the wreck. He's enthusiastic about it. There is no mention of "if you have the training and equipment" to penetrate. He had no clue if we had lights and wreck reels, let alone the training to penetrate. My instabuddy, a really nice gal in her 20s, and I looked at each other in horror and immediately agreed we didn't feel comfortable doing it and would not. I told her about my wreck class on the lake, just last weekend, where the 3rd limited penetration (within the light zone for other newbies) dive was called due to very bad viz.
My first reaction to hearing the captain talk about penetrating the wreck was WTF?! Going into overheads without training/proper gear can get people hurt or killed. I always have in mind this incident of a diver trapped in the Cedarville, a wreck in the Straits of Mackinac. Pretty sobering stuff.
Wreck Dive Rescue: Trapped Inside the Cedarville
Viz on the wreck turned out to be 10ft, if that. As we were swimming over the open hatches, I thought, "You wanted me to penetrate in *these* conditions?!"
I went diving on Lake Michigan today. My LDS' boat was booked up all weekend, so I went with a competitor. The wrecks were 85ft and 74ft to the keel. There has been a lot of wind for the past few days, so the lake was pretty churned up. Captain said viz was probably going to be pretty bad.
As he's giving up the briefing on the first wreck (a cleaned up 200ft car ferry specifically sunk for divers/fish habit more than 10 years ago), he is talking about people penetrating the wreck. He's enthusiastic about it. There is no mention of "if you have the training and equipment" to penetrate. He had no clue if we had lights and wreck reels, let alone the training to penetrate. My instabuddy, a really nice gal in her 20s, and I looked at each other in horror and immediately agreed we didn't feel comfortable doing it and would not. I told her about my wreck class on the lake, just last weekend, where the 3rd limited penetration (within the light zone for other newbies) dive was called due to very bad viz.
My first reaction to hearing the captain talk about penetrating the wreck was WTF?! Going into overheads without training/proper gear can get people hurt or killed. I always have in mind this incident of a diver trapped in the Cedarville, a wreck in the Straits of Mackinac. Pretty sobering stuff.
Wreck Dive Rescue: Trapped Inside the Cedarville
Viz on the wreck turned out to be 10ft, if that. As we were swimming over the open hatches, I thought, "You wanted me to penetrate in *these* conditions?!"