Having spent my entire life living on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan, the mysteries of the Great Lakes shipwrecks have always been of huge interest. Add to that, my father was a merchant marine on the Great Lakes until the day he died having been a member of the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald just before its sinking.
It has been recorded that the Great Lakes Triangle is larger in area than the well know Bermuda Triangle. The Great Lakes are the largest repositories of shipwrecks of anywhere in the world. It has been said that more than 6,000 to 10,000 shipwrecks have taken place its waters.
The Great Lakes are one of the top places in the world for divers. The icy fresh water preserves the ships far better than the ocean salt water and its corrosive effects. These underwater graveyards act as a haunted museum for its explorers.
When I was much younger, salvaging off these sunken vessels was a very lucrative business. Nowadays it is illegal to remove anything from these ships. The only treasures allowed is the photos you can take with your underwater camera.
Another Great Lakes shipwreck was discovered in the bottom of Lake Superior recently. Reminding the world of the vast discoveries yet untouched in the underwater world of the Great Lakes. This watery grave that took 22 lives and only left one survivor has gone undetected for 100 years. The Cyprus’s sinking has been a mystery since the ship was only on her second voyage. Found in 440 feet of water, the ship was located 10 miles away from the original report from the survivor.
Finding new shipwrecks is not that uncommon now. With modern technology and the growing interest in diving, new sunken ships are said to be found at the rate of about 10 a year. Divers can also go on the internet and find where these shipwrecks are located in the Great Lakes. These sites list the location of the ship, description of the wrecks and the difficulty of the dive.
There is also underwater shipwreck museums marked for exploration to tourists. Many of these underwater museums still hold there cargo intact, the ones that were not hit by salvagers that is.
The next time you decide to take your travel destination to the shores of the Great Lakes, stop and tour some of the Great Lake shipwreck museums and get a glimpse of the treachery of these vast fresh waterways.
