Next on Jonathan Bird’s Blue World, Jonathan explores shipwrecks in the St. Lawrence River!
Hi I’m Jonathan Bird, and welcome to my world.
The Saint Lawrence River is one of the busiest waterways in the world.
Because it connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, the river has been used for
hundreds of years to get cargo to and from ports serving both the United States and Canada
within the Great Lakes.
Huge cargo ships travel up and down the St. Lawrence by the hour.
Like any busy waterway, the St. Lawrence has had its share of accidents, and as a result,
there are hundreds of shipwrecks on the bottom of the river going back hundreds of years.
Many of these wrecks are remarkably well-preserved time capsules of history.
To learn more about these wrecks, Cameraman Todd and I have driven up to the Thousand
Island region of the river to do some diving.
The Thousand Island region is a beautiful community in upstate New York.
There really are over a thousand islands on the river here, and many of them contain incredible
homes!
Our guide to the area is famous National Geographic photographer David Doubilet.
He’s a local resident and expert on the nearby wrecks.
We load the boat, operated by Chris Hunt, of Hunts Dive Shop, and we’re off on an
adventure!
It’s a little bit strange for me to be heading out for a dive in fresh water.
It smells differently from the sea, and the conditions on the river are calmer than I’m
used to.
Chris expertly guides the boat to the first mooring we are visiting today.
The bow of his boat tilts down like the front of a world war 2 beach landing craft, providing
an easy entry into the water.
We suit up, preparing to jump into the relatively warm 65 degree water.
David and I head down the mooring line to the top of the wreck of the Keystorm, in only
35 feet.
The Keystorm was a 256 foot-long steel-hulled cargo ship that sank in 1912 carrying a load
of coal.
The captain miscalculated his position and struck a ledge.
David knows this wreck well, so he motions for me and Todd to follow him towards the
bridge, which is, strangely, on the side of the wreck!
The ship is awkwardly lying on its side, so the bridge, instead of being the highest point
on the wreck, is hanging out in space at a depth of about 60 feet!
It makes for a great shot and I explore the bridge, swimming in and out of the windows,
the glass from which is long since gone.
David photographs a ladder going sideways!
I head upwards, into the interior.
Fish are hanging out inside, and rooms are full of deep accumulations of shells from
generations of zebra mussels.
Back outside, I swim a little deeper, down the side of the wreck to a huge cowl vent.
This is sticking up off the top deck, but since the ship is on its side, it points horizontally
out into the water.
A cowl vent is used to funnel fresh air below deck.
Just to illustrate how big this thing is, I hop inside.
Will I fit?
Yes!
Even with my scuba gear I could slide right through this thing!
Soon I’m off into another room.
This used to be stateroom where a member of the crew slept.
Rustcicles hang from a doorway.
And hanging vertically from the sideways floor?
A bath rub!
I hop in the tub for a quick rust bath, and then Todd and I head back out into daylight.
David is swimming along the hull, which is completely encrusted in zebra mussels, a small
invasive mollusk that grows on everything in the St. Lawrence these days.
Finally, getting low on air, it’s time to head back to the surface.
Whew!
Wow!
The really confusing thing about that wreck is that it’s on its side, so everything
is discombobulated.
The floors are the walls and the walls are the floors and the ceilings.
And when you are swimming though it, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
It completely throws your brain for a loop, but a very interesting dive visually.
We leave the mooring and head off to another wreck.
Approaching Dark Island, home of Singer Castle, we slow and prepare to dive the wreck of the
America.
The America was a drill barge that sank 1932 due to an accidental explosion of dynamite
it was carrying.
Several people were killed in the explosion.
David, Todd and I jump into the water and head down to the sea floor.
In the shallows we find the anchor chain, and follow it over and down to the wreck.
Once we reach the wreck, David directs us towards the stern, where the explosion happened.
As we approach the stern, it gets deeper and darker.
At 75 feet, we encounter the props.
Because the ship is upside-down, the props are sticking straight up.
David and I maneuver for shots while Todd backlights the props with his video lights.
Next we drop over the side, down towards the sea floor.
Hanging off the bottom of the wreck, which is actually the deck, is a huge rusty winch,
wound with steel cable.
I poke my head into the engine room door and have a look around.
As this was a steam engine, it had furnaces for the boilers.
One of the furnaces is open and I can clearly see the bricks lining the inside.
This is where coal was burned to boil water to make steam for the engine.
The black soot from the fire is still visible even after 80 years on the bottom of the river!
I head out of the engine room, up the line to the chain and back to the mooring line.
My exploration of both the Keystorm and the America offered a fascinating glimpse into
history.
Shipwrecks are time capsules of history.
The moment they sink, out of sight to the rest of the world, they stop changing with
the world above.
Although they eventually rust away and disappear, in the meantime they allow divers to travel
back in time, if only for an hour, to a world of the past.