Straits of Mackinac - July 15th and 16th

[schultz]

Heya everyone. It's been a busy few months with minimal diving, but a bunch of friends and I went up to the Straits of Mackinac this past weekend for few dives. With the weather in the 90's in Wisconsin, diving in the U.P. was a pleasure. Saturday had beautiful weather with highs in the 80's and seas calm to 2 feet. Vis 40 feet with bottom temps in the low 40's

We hit a total of four wrecks, including the Eber Ward, the McBriar (which we installed the mooring on that day), the Sandusky, and the stern on the Cedarville. We did a little deco on the deeper dives, not because we had to, but rather just to give us a little more time at depth. For the shallower wrecks we certainly stayed within recreational limits making this easily doable by anyone with an advanced open water certification.

Currents were light, but most notable on all the wrecks were tufts of algae floating throughout the water. Not certain what that was all about but in most places, it obscured photography due to all the backscatter it caused. That coupled with a new wide-angle lens lead to a lot of frustrating shots that really need to be taken again. Maybe I'll do a solo trip in August.

Sunday was hit or miss with the severe storms the area had in the morning. Despite the small craft warnings we decided to go out. We did three dives, one on the William Young, the Cedarville bow, and the M. Stalker. Waves were calm to 3 feet, with vis around 40 feet.

All in all a good trip.