Steel Cassaion out by EMBA

[underwateraddict]

Does anyone have info on this object?  I dove this recently and almost lost my anchor on it.  It came down in the center over an I beam one layer down and went through a crack in one of the decks.  The inside of this thing reminded me of the movie "National Treasure" and I got the anchor back after a dozen or so pulls with the boat.

[DiveCaptDean]

what was your depth on this.  this sounds like the site deans wreck
..i know you made mention of diving this site and found it to be
a concrete form..but that was not the site  found....the one i found
was. steel..trapezoidal...and chambered..much like what you speak of

dean

[scubert]

Dean,
if you check Jerry's new charts, you will see they are listed separately.
#25 for the cassion, #38 for deans wreck.

This is supposed to be an actual cassion, steel and concrete, partially filled with old masonry.  It lies .25 min north and almost a minute east of "deans wreck" in lat/lon terms.

I've never been to the cassion, and hope to make it out there this summer yet.

[underwateraddict]

I have seen the comments about deans wrecks and they are further west in 120' of water.  I have dove both of the dean's wrecks plus another one real close by.  All three (inculding deans wrecks) are identical.   They are made of concrete, rectangular in shape with a wood floor, have 4 compartments and the top tappers in (trapazoidal),  there are four loops for lifting and the dimensions are roughly 20x20x60.  There is an elbows worth of silt in them so the have been there for a while.  My guess is that they were marine construction foundations that would be floated into place, sunk, then filled up.  These were disgarded.  Jerry hinted that there was a fouth one in the area.  The object in my orignal post is near the EMBA and tha Albans.  The bottom read 145 but the sonar was 165...i was in a hurry and did not check if the bottom mounded upor not.   Also it does have masonary inside like the other post.....enjoy.

[underwateraddict]

I also plan on revisiting this summer but were going to hover the anchor up to it.  Restling for the anchor is no fun.

[underwateraddict]

I was also not very descritive in my orignal post.  The cassion is round, about 60' in diameter, made of steel,  There is an inner circle if "I" beams and decks that partially span from the inner frames to the outer hull.  The center is empty and the are a lot of rocks on the decking.  Also inside are ladders and cables.  The top if I remember was at about 95'.  The bottom was 145 and does not jive, but I do not remember if I buried the depth gauge or not because I know the neighborhood is 165'.

[underwateraddict]

Jerry showed a couple of objects which could look like wagon wheels: There was an active water intake which he only shows the picture and does not share the file or coordinates for obvious reasons.  Another are the two abandoned water intakes off of north point water tower.  Those are in 50' and a not bad dive.  They have 5'diameter steel pipes that converge and head towards shore.  The Cassion I have only seen in his scans looks like a small tire on a smooth plain  he coined it "Three hits".

[underwateraddict]

We dove this again this last weekend.  This time I suspended the 30 lb navy anchor from 130 feet of rope and slowly motored up to it before dropping it all the way.  The depth is 145 feet per sonar.  The anchor missed by 50 feet and the vis was not good enough so I was mindfull about relocating the ascent line and the dive was short.  I noticed a large grated opening on the bottom probably south east side.  This object is interesting and massive.   I am suprised it does not receive more attention.  If it was earlier in the season I would consider putting a mooring line on it.

[underwateraddict]

On my usual lunch surfing I stumbled over a picture of the construction of the 68th street water intake crib in Chicago dated 1908-09.

There is a temporary crane sitting on top of a metal structure that is a dead ringer for the caisson out by the Albans.  The size the structure and even the rocks, minus the crane.  I could not copy the picture out of the website as they are using a special media but bellow is the link. 



My guess is that a crane sat on top of this thing and they moved it and sank it wherever they did large marine construction.

[FreediveWI]

Great picture!

That's pretty much what I remember it looking like, but the last time I dove it was in the bad vis we used to have, back before zebra mussles covered everything.

Jerry originally thought it was the sunken bridge that's out there somewhere and when we first dove it he went left and I went right. We were going to dive for a certain amount of time and then turn back to review what we saw back up on the boat- but then we ran into each other on the other side of the thing, so much for a bridge!  ;D  I thought the depth was around 150'-155 on the bottom, but 95' to the top sounds about right.

Jon