﻿Coming up, the Blue World team goes deep in search of spooky lost shipwrecks in the dark
waters of Lake Champlain! Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
I’m heading to beautiful Burlington Vermont, on the shores of Lake Champlain! The Zachs and I,
along with our new assistant diver Annalise are going to explore some deep shipwrecks.
Lake Champlain is located on the border between Vermont and New York state.
We already did some really cool dives on the historic canal schooners, which were used to
transport materials to and from New York City. These wrecks were covered in marine
life and shallow enough to have a fair amount of natural light. But today we’re going deeper.
Our adventure begins at Waterfront Diving Center in Burlington with our guide Shelagh Cooley.
Good morning! How are you? Beautiful day for a dive! Isn’t it? It’s raining outside but we
don’t care, we’re going to get wet anyway. Since we’re diving on the deeper side,
we are using a special breathing mixture called Nitrox, which must be analyzed before the dive.
We suit up and take a walk over to the marina to load the boat.
Captain Larry has his funky landing craft dive boat ready to go. And Shelagh is ready too.
It might be rainy but there is no wind. It’s nice and calm--a perfect dive day.
Soon we arrive at the mooring ball for the Lavallee Tugboat.
The Lavallee was a steam-powered tugboat operating in the early 1900s on the lake.
It sank in 1931 and vanished for 65 years! Since the wreck is deep, we have limited time to work,
so we split into two teams. We’re sending the advance team down with the lights
to set them up so they are ready to go when we get down there. Alright man! See ya down there!
Zach-of-all-Trades and Annalise are going to place some lights.
Cameraman Zach and I follow about five minutes later. Hey everybody! Have you subscribed? You
know, we only put out like one episode a month, so you’re not going to get a lot of notifications
from us. So just hit the button! We follow the mooring line into the cold darkness of
100 feet. The surface is over 70 degrees Fahrenheit but it’s only 45 down here!
Lavallee is part of the Lake Champlain Underwater Historic Preserve, so we cannot go inside the
shipwreck. The Lavallee sank in 1931 but due to the lack of detailed records on the sinking
and its depth, the wreck was not found until 1996. But the cold water down here
has preserved her well. There are almost no Zebra mussels on the wooden hull.
The helm is in pretty good shape. But the wheelhouse that it was in has been
blown clean off, either by air pressure as the ship sank, or by an explosion.
As we head towards the stern, we peek inside the doorways without going inside.
This looks like a bunkroom.
Further back we see the steam engine. This is one of the very few steamboat wrecks in Lake Champlain
that still has the engine aboard. On top of the wreck: part of the smoke stack from the engine.
The rest of it can be found in the mud next to the wreck.
There’s a huge cleat for tying up other boats to be tugged.
And down on the bottom, the prop and rudder, half buried in muck.
As I swim back towards the bow, I am struck by the lonely desolation of this historic ghost
of the abyss. For nearly a hundred years she has quietly rested peacefully in this cold darkness.
We can only spend a short time here before no decompression limits force us to ascend.
We are grateful for the return of light and warmth as we make our way to the surface.
You want to talk about some spooky Scooby-Doo stuff right there. That was like the spookiest
dive I ever did. You can’t see a hint of light from this light on the stern,
not the slightest glow….nothing. All you have is just barely the little bit
of light that gets through down there and its very spooky…Very very spooky.
The next day, the sun has returned and we’re heading out to a wreck that we know
nothing about. Captain Larry found this wreck and he is the only one who knows where it is.
There is no mooring on it, so we have to place our own marker. Very technical here!
When Larry hits the right location on his GPS,
Shelagh throws the weight, and with any luck it will land on the wreck.
But the rope is too short to reach that far down.
So recover the line and add some more rope! OK!
The second time is the charm. Hopefully we bullseyed the wreck.
And there is no way to know without going down to look. Set
for air… Right.
We drop down through the thermocline into the cold water below.
And wouldn’t you know it, the marker landed right smack dab in the middle of the wreck.
Shelagh leads the way. All we know about this wreck is that it’s a wooden barge that caught
fire and sank. We don’t know the name of the barge or the year it sank.
Since it’s not part of the historical preserve, we can swim inside the wreckage and have a
look around. We need to be really careful because the visibility is not good at all.
Timbers inside the wreck look pretty good
but the fire really did a number on the deck planks.
The evidence of the fire is everywhere in the charred remains.
The wreck is strung with fishing line from snagged hooks, which is how the wreck was discovered.
A motorcycle tire was used as a bumper, and the hull looks solid.
The darkness, depth and cold water, combined with the murky visibility,
make this wreck super spooky.
And after half an hour, we must depart.
We do a short decompression stop for safety before we ascend to the surface.
Lake Champlain has a rich maritime history dating back to the 1600s,
with wrecks of all ages, some of which have been documented, while others remain a mystery.
No matter where our adventures take us, we always find something fascinating in the Blue World.
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