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Okay...this morning my girlfriend and I got up very early in anticipation of a fun day of diving. We were travelling to Two Rivers, WI to go dive the Rouse Simmons, better known as the Christmas Ship with several friends.
For info on the Rouse Simmons and it's tale, visit this link:http://www.uscg.mil/d9/xmaship.htm
My friend has a big enough boat for four divers...so four eager divers we had. We put the boat in at about 9am and headed out towards the shipwreck with two GPS units leading us to our destination, using coordinates obtained from a Great Lakes diving book written by Chris Kohl. We also had another book on diving Wisconsin wrecks by another author. Unfortunately, the other book only had LORAN-C information, but the LORAN-C info was the same in both books.
We went out to the wreck, and slowed when we were within .3 miles of the wreck. We readied a buoy, and when the GPS units were telling us we were within several feet of the wreck, we dropped the buoy overboard and began a search pattern using depth finder/sonar.
After an hour and a half of running waffle and circle search patterns looking on the bottom....we never found the wreck.
It was a very disappointing day - we have heard so many stories about this wreck, especially how it is intact with christmas trees still tied to it's deck....we were really dying to dive it.
Anyway...after all this. My question is - how in the heck are you supposed to go about finding un-buoyed shipwrecks?!?! This is the first time we've tried this. Other friends have told us that you navigate to the wreck using GPS coordinates and then use depth finder/sonar to locate the actual wreck. When you find it, drop anchor and go! However, we never once saw anything on the bottom during all of our efforts. Any tips? Yes, were complete newbies to finding our own wrecks, I know this...but do you have any advice?
I would be more than happy to post the coords of the wreck if anyone could confirm the ones I had were actually correct!
Okay...this morning my girlfriend and I got up very early in anticipation of a fun day of diving. We were travelling to Two Rivers, WI to go dive the Rouse Simmons, better known as the Christmas Ship with several friends.
For info on the Rouse Simmons and it's tale, visit this link:http://www.uscg.mil/d9/xmaship.htm
My friend has a big enough boat for four divers...so four eager divers we had. We put the boat in at about 9am and headed out towards the shipwreck with two GPS units leading us to our destination, using coordinates obtained from a Great Lakes diving book written by Chris Kohl. We also had another book on diving Wisconsin wrecks by another author. Unfortunately, the other book only had LORAN-C information, but the LORAN-C info was the same in both books.
We went out to the wreck, and slowed when we were within .3 miles of the wreck. We readied a buoy, and when the GPS units were telling us we were within several feet of the wreck, we dropped the buoy overboard and began a search pattern using depth finder/sonar.
After an hour and a half of running waffle and circle search patterns looking on the bottom....we never found the wreck.
It was a very disappointing day - we have heard so many stories about this wreck, especially how it is intact with christmas trees still tied to it's deck....we were really dying to dive it.
Anyway...after all this. My question is - how in the heck are you supposed to go about finding un-buoyed shipwrecks?!?! This is the first time we've tried this. Other friends have told us that you navigate to the wreck using GPS coordinates and then use depth finder/sonar to locate the actual wreck. When you find it, drop anchor and go! However, we never once saw anything on the bottom during all of our efforts. Any tips? Yes, were complete newbies to finding our own wrecks, I know this...but do you have any advice?
I would be more than happy to post the coords of the wreck if anyone could confirm the ones I had were actually correct!