John Kreatsoulas operates the Fossil Junkies Dig and Dive Charters and recently made a remarkable discovery on Tuesday while exploring potential dive sites along the Peace River near Arcadia—a once-in-a-lifetime fossil

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Bennet Shapiro MD is an orthopedic surgeon and Naval Officer. He discusses the importance of doing what you can do despite limitations during Mayo Clinic Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine 2023 Conference.

Diveheart is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy, and related activities. 

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

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Tracy is a Navy Veteran living with ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Tracy was a scuba diver before the disease changed her life. With Diveheart, she’s been able to reclaim part of her identity before ALS.

Tracy is featured in the award-winning documentary Adapting to Dive

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

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Marine Veteran Greg Rodriguez suffered a traumatic brain injury that changed his life. He felt useless, but Diveheart & Scuba Therapy helped turn Greg around. His story is featured in this WGN TV Medical Report.

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

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A waterspout is a powerful columnar vortex that forms over water and typically resembles a funnel-shaped cloud. Some are associated with cumulus congestus, some with cumulonimbus clouds, and others with cumuliform clouds. A fair-weather waterspout’s life cycle has five stages. A prominent circular, light-colored disc with a larger, darker area around it at first appears on the water’s surface. A pattern of light-and dark-colored spiral bands emerges from the dark spot on the water’s surface after the formation of these coloured discs on the surface. Then, around the dark spot with what seems to be an eye, a dense ring of sea spray known as a “cascade” appears. The waterspout eventually transforms into an apparent funnel that leads from the water’s surface to the cloud above. The spray vortex can reach heights of several hundred feet or more, and as it moves, it frequently leaves a visible wake and a related wave train. The life cycle of the waterspout is finally completed as the funnel and spray vortex start to dissipate as the warm air inflow weakens.

Most waterspouts are weak, small rotating columns of air over water rather than sucking up water. Stronger variants, produced by mesocyclones, do occasionally exist, despite generally being weaker than their land-based counterparts.

Although they have been spotted in the Great Lakes, tropical and subtropical regions are where waterspout formation is most common. But, nine waterspouts were reported on Lake Michigan in the United States at once in 2012. Although they are rare, waterspouts have been observed in conjunction with lake-effect snow precipitation bands.

Tornadoes over water, also known as “tornadoes watersprouts” are formed from mesocyclones in a manner that is essentially the same as how tornadoes on land are formed in connection with severe thunderstorms. Tornadic waterspouts would also include a tornado that crosses from land to water. True tornadic waterspouts are consequently more uncommon than their fair-weather counterparts.

Any object within 90 cm (1 yard) of the water’s surface, including fish of all sizes, frogs, and even turtles, can be lifted into the air, depending on how quickly the winds from a waterspout are whipping. Sometimes, a waterspout can pull small animals like fish out of the water and up into the cloud. Even if the waterspout stops rotating, the fish in the cloud can still be carried over land and tossed around by the wind until the cloud’s currents are no longer able to keep the fish in the air. People up to 160 km (100 miles) inland have reported seeing fish fall from the sky.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was a widely held belief among sailors that firing a broadside cannon volley dispersed waterspouts. Captain Vladimir Bronevskiy, among others, asserts that it was a successful tactic because he saw a phenomenon disappear in the Adriatic. The Mary Celeste was abandoned, and a waterspout has been suggested as the cause.

Watersprouts have long recognized as significant marine hazards. Watercraft, aircraft, and people are all in danger from stronger waterspouts. It is advised to stay well away from these phenomena and to always be alert by monitoring weather reports. When waterspouts are expected to move onshore or have already been sighted over coastal waters, the National Weather Services frequently issues special marine warnings or tornado warnings.

We’ll be showcasing Chris’s videos in collaboration with The Scuba News Canada. These are educational and informative, and Chris admits that he hopes to inspire people to try scuba diving. On TikTok, he has over 145,000 followers from all over the world. He makes regular scuba diving adventure and instructional videos, as well as answering viewer questions in his videos about anything scuba or water-related. He feels seasoned divers can stay current with the new dive industry and training philosophies, so his channel has something for the novice to experienced divers.

About Chris Foisey

Chris was certified at Dans Dive Shop in 2011 and started working there that summer. After a few years, he started to pursue technical diving as well as becoming a Padi Dive Master. Over the years he has built his certifications up to a Level 1 cave diver and trimix decompression diver, Padi Master Scuba Diver Trainer as well as a hydrostatic technician and a full-time employee at Dan’s Dive Shop. Over the last 10 years, Chris has completed over 1200 dives all over the world and personally certified over 300 students.

Follow Chris on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube & Modern Diver

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Here at The Scuba News, we are always highly impressed and supportive towards the work of Diveheart, whose primary mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy and related activities.

Over the coming couple of weeks we will be showcasing some of the great videos Diveheart have produced, focussing specifically on their work with veterans.

For the first video in this series, Daniel and Nick, Military Veterans and Adaptive Dive Buddies, talk about the healing power of scuba diving. Daniel was a Marine Combat Medic and Navy Diver. He sees diving as a way to clear his head of difficult memories and bad thoughts. Nick was a firefighter during 9-11 and has been diagnosed with PTSD. When scuba diving, he finds peace of mind and relief from physical pain.

Diveheart is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy, and related activities. 

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

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Video of a diver carving a pumpkin underwater at Otter Lake, north of Flint, Michigan

HMCS Saskatchewan was a destroyer of the Mackenzie class that served in the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and then in the Canadian Forces. She was the second naval unit in Canada to bear the name of HMCS Saskatchewan. The vessel is named after the Saskatchewan River in Canada, which runs from Saskatchewan to Manitoba.

She was mostly utilized as a training ship on the west coast after entering service in 1963. In 1994, she was decommissioned and sold as an artificial reef. She was sunk off the coast of British Columbia in June 1997.

The Mackenzie-class ships had a length of 366 feet (112 meters), a beam of 42 feet (13 meters), and a draught of 13 feet 6 inches (4.11 m). The Mackenzie’s had a complement of 290 and displaced 2,880 tons (2,830 long tons) when fully loaded.

HMCS Saskatchewan was initially stationed on the east coast, in Halifax. She was stationed off Haiti as part of an international force monitoring an insurgency against the sitting president, François Duvalier, in April 1963, while sailing to the Pacific. She was assigned to the Pacific in October 1963 and ran aground in the Gulf of Georgia on September 8, 1968. A court-martial later found the captain guilty of carelessness in the case. The destroyer returned to the east coast in February 1970, when she took over as the flagship of NATO’s standing fleet, STANAVFORLANT, from HMCS Nipigon.

Saskatchewan returned to the west coast in 1973 and spent the rest of her service there, mostly as a training ship with the Royal Canadian Navy and later the Canadian Forces’ Maritime Forces Pacific. The destroyer was dispatched in July 1982 to pursue the Soviet spy ship Aavril Sarychev, which had been spying on the west coast of North America. From May 27 to June 17, 1986, she was undergoing a DELEX overhaul at the Burrard Yarrow Shipyard in Esquimalt. She was one of the Canadian warships dispatched to Australia in the fall of 1986 to take part in the Royal Australian Navy’s 75th anniversary festivities. The ship remained a training ship with Training Group Pacific until 1 April, when she was paid off.

YouTube

November 29, 1966 on this day in history

Only Dennis Hale survived of the 29 crew members when the SS Daniel J. Morrell freighter broke in half and sunk off Harbor Beach (63 miles north of Port Huron, Michigan) in an unforgiving November Lake Huron storm. In the same storm, Sistership Edward Y. Townsend suffered a broken hull and was condemned when it arrived at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

At first, investigators did not believe Dennis Hale’s account that the vessel broke in two at the water surface, and the stern continued under power until it finally sunk.

The SS Daniel J. Morrell was a 603-foot (184 m) Great Lakes freighter. The freighter was used for carrying bulk cargo such as iron ore, but when the 60-year-old ship sank, it was working with only ballast. Daniel J. Morell was designed and launched in 1906 by the West Bay City Ship Building Company, based in West Bay City, Michigan. Its tonnage was 7,239 GRT, was 603 feet long with a 58-foot beam and powered by 2 marine boilers.

Daniel J. Morrell was trapped in winds greater than 70 mph (110 km/h) and swells that topped the ship’s height 20 to 25 ft (6.1 to 7.6 m) waves in the last run of the season with her sister ship, Edward Y. Townsend. The Townsend made the decision to take shelter in the St. Clair River during the early morning hours, of November 29, 1966, leaving Daniel J. Morrell alone in the waters north of Pointe Aux Barques, Michigan, and attempting to head to the protection of Thunder Bay. The ship started her death throes at 02:00 am, forcing the crew onto the bridge, where many jumped in the 34 ° F (1 ° C) degree Lake Huron waters to their deaths. The ship’s hull broke at 02:15 am and thus water started to flood in. The remaining crewmen loaded into a raft.

There were shouts that a ship had been spotted off the port bow as the remaining crew waited for the ship to break up and the raft to be tossed into the lake from the bow of the Morell where the crew had boarded. Moments later it was discovered that not another ship was the looming target, but the aft portion of Daniel J. Morrell, barreling toward them under the power of the engine of the ship. With the rafts heading into the distance, the ship broke up.

In the words of author William Ratigan, the vessel’s remains vanished “like a great wounded beast with its head shot off into the night”.

The following afternoon, 30 November 1966 around 12:15 pm, Daniel J. Morrell was reported missing as she did not make her destination, Taconite Harbor, Minnesota. A “be on the lookout” warning was issued by the U.S. Coast Guard and several vessels and aircraft were deployed to search for the missing freighter.

A Coast Guard helicopter spotted the sole survivor, 26-year-old Watchman Dennis Hale, nearly frozen and floating in a life raft with the bodies of three of his crew members at about 4:00 pm on November 30, 1966. In freezing weather, Hale survived the nearly 40-hour ordeal wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, a lifejacket, and a pea coat.

Escaping the same fate as her sister ship, Edward Y. Townsend had been found to have a large crack in her deck that grew worse from the same storm. She was considered a complete loss, and for nearly two years she remained docked. Plans were made for the vessel to be towed to Europe for scrapping. On October 7, 1968, she was caught in a heavy storm off Newfoundland on her way to Europe, and snapped in two and sank in the approximate area where the RMS Titanic had sunk many years before.

Eventually, the remains of 26 of the 28 missing crewmen were recovered, in the days following the sinking. Some of the crewman bodies were not found till May of 1967. In May 1967, the two men whose bodies were never found were confirmed to be legally dead. On September 2, 2015, at the age of 75, Dennis Hale, the sole survivor of the sinking, died of cancer.

The significant factor in this loss was the disruptive force of the November seas and wind, on the Great Lakes as it was in several similar accidents which include the Edmund Fitzgerald and the Henry Steinbrenner. The Coast Guard investigation of Daniel J. Morrell’s sinking reported that she broke in half because of the brittle steel used in her hull, which was a “common problem” in ships constructed before 1948.

Daniel J Morrell remains intact and upright underwater. There are two sites for diving. At 130ft (40m), the bow can be reached, but both the bow and the stern rest at about 200ft on the bottom (61m). The mast, intact cabin, mushroom anchors and a long swim to where the ship broke in half are the signature features on the bow. The stern has just about everything to see as when it went down, lifeboats on the side, dishes in the galley, life ring down the stairs, and open engine room. The top of the deck features a double wheel and a smokestack.

This is an technical dive due to the depth, resting at 200 feet.

Research has been taking place to find the wreck of a VOC ship in Table Bay near Cape Town since 1989. The wreck is that of the Nieuw Haarlem, an East Indiaman of about 500 tons that was built in 1642–1643 in the yard of the Chamber of Amsterdam.

Returning from a trading trip, the ship had completed three return voyages before it fell on a lee shore in the Table Bay and ran aground on 25 March 1647. Shortly thereafter 58 of the 120 strong crew were repatriated with the help from some English ships and the Witte Olifant and Schiedam, with which the Nieuw Haarlem had left Batavia on 16 January. The other 62 hands remained behind to put as much of the cargo as possible in safety. It took about a year for them to be picked up by the return fleet of 1648. In that intervening period the crew of the Nieuw Haarlem came into contact with the local population. Although the first meetings were marked by insecurity and suspicion, communication improved after a few months. In the end they engaged in bartering, visited each other and a few of the locals even learned some Dutch.

Up to now the search for the Nieuw Haarlem has been based on archival searches and limited archaeological work in the field. Although the wreck has not been found yet, archival material has provided significant indicators to its probable location. This comprised first of all the logbook kept by deputy merchant Leendert Jansz, who together with Claes Winckels, master, commanded the 62 crew left behind.

This logbook mentions the estimated distance from the wreck and from the nearby encampment that was set up, to the quayside where the VOC ships and other vessels dropped anchor and where fresh drinking water was taken on board. This distance of one and a half ‘German mile’ or 11,112 metres, was then measured on a modern chart of Table Bay in following the coast line. This came out at a position between the present-day suburbs of Milnerton and Table View.

The direct distance between this point and the starting point was then measured, which resulted in a distance of a little over 10.5 kilometres. A manuscript chart from 1662 in the Leupe Collection of Foreign Maps and Charts in the Nationaal Archief confirmed the probable site of where the ship ran aground. This chart is not a true representation of the actual situation, as can be surmised from the exaggerated curved line of the east coast of Table Bay. It is more of a so-called fairsheet, which also provides other information such as the coastal contours.

However, it is very significant that the position of the wreck of the Nieuw Haarlem is marked a little south east of Robben Island. This was confirmed by projecting the chart as accurately as possible onto a modern nautical chart of the area, which also indicated a position between Milnerton and Table View. A second instruction is given in the journal of the first commander of the Cape colony, Jan van Riebeeck. This mentions that the wreck of the Nieuw Haarlem was still partly visible in 1652 and that there were some salt marshes in the immediate vicinity.

A different chart from the Leupe collection which marks these salt marshes in detail was used to indicate the extreme north and south boundaries of this area. This information was then projected onto a Google Earth bird’s eye view of the area in question. This also confirmed the probable site of the wreck. Geophysical research that has been undertaken since then, has detected a few considerable disturbances in the earth’s magnetic field which may possibly indicate the presence of wrecks buried beneath the sand. These sites have now be investigated by means of trial excavations. It is hoped that these will result in the wreck of the Nieuw Haarlem being found in the near future.

Learn more about the project at: https://haarlem1647.info

Becky Kagan-Schott, an underwater videographer, explores the Sandusky shipwreck, one of thousands of perfectly preserved time capsules in the Great Lakes. “Some of these shipwrecks look like they sank yesterday,” Becky quoted. The Sandusky, built in 1848 in Sandusky, Ohio, is the oldest known shipwreck in the Straits of Mackinac Shipwreck Preserve and is frequently visited by divers.

On September 20th, 1856, a violent gale erupted on Lake Michigan’s northern end, catching the two masked brig Sandusky in the Straits and sinking her in 84 feet of water. She was sailing east from Chicago to Buffalo, New York, loaded with grain. In total, nine crew members pershished. According to the story, three men clung to the mast that protruded from the water, but they died before they could be rescued by side-wheeler Queen City, along with the other six crew members.

The Sandusky is located five miles west of the Mackinac Bridge. The decks are crumbling in places, but there are some interesting artifacts on and around the wreck for underwater photographers, but divers are strongly advised to “observe not expropriate” anything off the sunken ship.

From May to September, a mooring line is in place to help divers with location and to prevent damage from anchors and hooks.

Intermediate to Advance dive skills are required and the location is:

Shipwreck: N45° 47.959′  W084° 50.249′

Mooring:    N45° 47.978′   W084° 50.248′

YouTube Video featuring Becky Kagan-Schott @ Liquid Productions

The Goderich Salt Mine (Sifto) is the largest underground salt mine in the world.

The world’s largest underground salt mine, the Goderich (Ontario) mine, is 1,800 feet beneath Lake Huron. The depth of the mine equals the height of Toronto’s CN Tower. The mine is about the same size as Goderich itself, covering a surface area of 7 sq km beneath Lake Huron. It has been in operation since 1959.

Sam Platt, who was prospecting for oil in Goderich Harbour on Lake Huron in 1866 but found rock salt instead of oil. Sifto Canada was founded in 1950, and in the 1990s, Compass Minerals, a US chemical company, purchased the business. The Goderich mine, which has grown to be the largest salt mine in Canada, continues to be a major supplier of salt for Compass Minerals.

The facility uses mechanical evaporation to create high-purity, coarse-and fine-grained salt products in bulk and packages for use in commercial, agricultural, and industrial settings. The mine’s rock salt, which is used for deicing and water conditioning, is also packaged at the plant. Table salt, fine evaporated salt, water conditioning salt, agricultural salt, and highway deicing salt are some of the company’s main products.

The Goderich salt mine has a production capacity of 9 million tons per year, and produces 7,250,000 tons per year.

On a beautiful evening after work, Sean from Nova Scotia went out for another underwater exploration and clean-up.

Now what the heck is a bottle from New York City doing all the way up here? The first image has the words M.B. & Co. 145 West 35th Street N.Y. 1861 embossed on it. I couldn’t believe it when I came across it on tonight’s dive.

The next item of interest was another button, this time with the image of an elephant, the number 78 and the phrase Assaye Maida Java. A quick Google search reveals it was from a soldier from the 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot, from the United Kingdom.

Saltwater Sean

M.B. & Co.

There isn’t much information available on the M. B. & Co in New York in 1861. However, many bottles from this company are available for around $35.00 on eBay and Amazon.

78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot

On March 8, 1793, Francis Humberston MacKenzie, Chief of the Clan Mackenzie and later Lord Seaforth, raised the 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot. Formed at Fort George in July 1793, the regiment relocated to the Channel Islands in August 1893, and embarked for Holland in September 1794 to serve in the French Revolutionary Wars.[ It saw action in November 1794 during the defense of Nijmegen. The regiment arrived in England in April 1795, then sailed to France for the Battle of Quiberon Bay in June 1795 and the landing at Île d’Yeu, off the coast of Brittany, in September 1795, before returning to England.

In 1865, the regiment embarked for Gibraltar, and in May 1869, it sailed on the troopship HMS Crocodile to Halifax, Nova Scotia, arriving on May 14, 1869. During the summer, the regiment camped at Bedford to practice musketry at the military range. Alexander Keith, Grandmaster of the Masonic Lodge of Nova Scotia, hosted a farewell ball for them before they left in 1871. In November 1871, the regiment, along with 17 young local women who had married soldiers, boarded the troopship HMS Orontes bound for Ireland.

The 78th Highlanders (Halifax Citadel) Pipe Band, a grade one pipe band formed in 1983, is managed by Citadel Hill, which features a living history program with animators portraying the 78th Highland Regiment.

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On 14 October 1942, 78 years ago, at 3:40 am, the Newfoundland passenger ferry SS Caribou was torpedoed by the German submarine U-69 37 km (20 nmi) southwest of Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, and sunk five minutes later. 137 people died, including civilian woman/children, Captain Benjamin Taverner, the long-time ship’s captain, and his sons Stanley and Harold, who served as first and third officers, respectively. Her sinking and large death toll made it clear that the war had really arrived on the home front of Canada and Newfoundland, and is cited by many historians as the most important sinking during the Second World War in Canadian-controlled waters.

SS Caribou was constructed for the Newfoundland Railway in 1925 at Rotterdam, Netherlands. Launched in 1925, the Caribou had a capacity of 3,000 horsepower (2,200 kW) and was able to attain a speed of 14.5 knots (26.9 km/h) when fully loaded. Between 1928 and 1942, the SS Caribou was a Newfoundland Railway passenger ferry running between Port aux Basques, in the Dominion of Newfoundland, and North Sydney, Nova Scotia. She was considered a luxury ferry for the times, due to the fact she had electric lights and steam heat in all the rooms. In addition, Caribou also helped during the seal hunt along the Newfoundland coast every spring due to its ice-breaking design.

On 13 October 1942, SS Caribou was part of the convoy Sydney-Port aux Basque (SPAB), organized by HMCS Defender, a Royal Canadian Navy base. The SPAB convoy series normally occurred three times a week and was carried out in the dark. The naval escort vessel on this ill-fated voyage was HMCS Grandmère, a Bangor-class minesweeper. Sadly, the German submarine U-69 was patrolling the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It was a dark evening and the U-69 was silhouetted against the night horizon by the thick smoke from the coal-fired steam boilers of the Caribou. Grandmere saw the submarine and attempted to ram it, but the U-69 submerged. The minesweeper (Grandmere) launched six deep charges over the next two hours but did not damage the submarine and U-69 crept away undetected into the Atlantic. Following procedure, Grandmère then went back for survivors.

The Canadian naval vessel Grandmere was criticized in the Sydney Post-Record and The Globe and Mail as well as other media outlets in the days after the sinking for not stopping and helping save survivors immediately; but it was against operating protocols, and would have put her in immediate danger of being sunk as well. Grandmère sailed for Sydney, Nova Scotia after picking up survivors because it had better hospital facilities than Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.

It was suggested by Gordon Payne, listening to the lyrics of the song, that it was composed by someone who was on The Caribou when it sunk. Many years ago, he heard a portion of the song and later got the full version of Cox’s Cove from Eli Payne. One of the survivors from the Caribou was William Lundrigan of Corner Brook.

The SS Caribou has not been pinpointed, according to Neil Burgess of the Shipwreck Preservation Society of Newfoundland & Labrador, and is situated at 450 metres, (1476 feet) beyond the depth of technical divers. To collect photos/videos, an ROV would be required.

How should old fishing nets and ropes be prepared for recycling?

In this video, we provide you with six easy steps to follow in order to properly prepare your used, broken, abandoned, and discarded fishing gear for recycling.

We separate the nets by type of plastic, rinse them in clean water, and store them in a dry, secure location after removing any metal weights and buoys. By taking these actions, you can lessen the impact that ghost gear has on marine ecosystems and, depending on how many nets you recycle, you can also raise money for your neighbourhood. Never burn or throw away used nets or ropes because doing so harms the environment and you.

What is Ghost Gear?

Ghost fishing gear, in particular, is one of the biggest threats to our oceans. Any fishing equipment that has been left behind, misplaced, or otherwise thrown away is referred to as “ghost gear,” including nets, line, rope, traps, pots, and floats. Other common terms include derelict fishing gear (DFG) and abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG). These marine pollutants are among the most dangerous objects in our oceans and can kill fish, marine mammals, and other marine life. They also present a navigational risk and decompose into other pollutants like microplastics.

Ghost gear is primarily caused by snagging, tangles with other fishing gear, weather, and accidentally being cut by passing marine traffic. Intentional discard by harvesters is less common and typically results from IUU (illegal, unreported, and unregulated) fishing, in which boats may cut loose their gear to avoid being apprehended by authorities.

More than eight million metric tons of plastic enter the oceans every year, and between 600,000 and 800,000 metric tons of ghost gear are thought to enter the oceans annually globally. In the Canadian Arctic, ghost gear has been identified as a significant source of marine debris, much of which comes from offshore.

Ghost gear is a threat to Canada’s waters and the rest of the world, and we have recognized this and made it a national priority. We are dedicated to taking effective measures to support ghost gear prevention, recovery, and responsible disposal by working with numerous organizations, including:

• Indigenous groups
• fish harvesters
• the aquaculture industry
• non-profit organizations
• communities

Let’s work together to keep our oceans free from ghost gear.

YouTube Video

The SS Ithaka is a steam freighter that has sunk off the Hudson Bay coast not far from Churchill, Manitoba. She was initially constructed in 1922 as the lake freighter Frank A. Augsbury for the Canadian George Hall Coal & Shipping Corporation. She then sailed for a number of different owners in various locations, receiving a number of name changes along the way, including Granby in 1927, Parita II in 1948, Valbruna in 1951, Lawrencecliffe Hall in 1952, Federal Explorer in 1955, and finally Ithaka in 1960, before being sunk later that year.

She was built by Fraser, Brace, Ltd. of Trois-Rivières, Quebec as the lake freighter Frank A. Augsbury for the George Hall Coal Company and launched on October 21, 1922. Frank A. Augsbury was a ship with a gross tonnage of 2,051 and dimensions of 251 ft 2 in (76.6 m) by 43 ft 1 in (13.1 m) with a draught of 18 ft 1 in (5.5 m). It was propelled by a triple expansion steam engine with a horsepower rating of 1,000 kW and coal-fired Scotch marine boilers. In 1927, she was bought by Canada Steamship Lines, who changed her name to Granby. The Ministry of War Transport took control of her, and France, Fenwick and Company oversaw her operations during the Second World War.

The British MV Atlantic City and the Granby collided off the West Goodwins (Kent England) on June 28, 1945, leaving Granby holed above the water. After being transported to the Downs, the tugboats Empire Larch and Empire Mary tow Granby to Gravesend on July 2, 1945. She was towed out of Gravesend on August 3 and foundered in the River Blackwater. She was bought by the Italian shipping company Lloyd Mediterraneo S.p.A. di Nav. in 1951 and given the new name Valbruna after being sold to the Panamanian company Cia Naviera Parita S.A. in 1948 under the new name Parita II. The Hall Corporation of Canada, Ltd., the original owners’ successor business, purchased Lawrencecliffe Hall in 1952 and brought her back to Canada as Lawrencecliffe Hall. In 1955, the Federal Commerce & Navigation Co., Ltd. purchased her once more, and they gave her the new name Federal Explorer.

She served as a supply ship for settlements along the Canadian Arctic coastline for Federal Commerce and Navigation, which twice chartered her to the Clarke Steamship Company in 1956 and used her to launch the Federal Intercoastal Line in 1957. In 1956, the Federal Explorer and her captain, Captain Simon Bouchard, transported fuel oil to RCAF stations in the Arctic as well as parts for a new nickel mill that was being built in Rankin Inlet. In 1958, she delivered grain from Churchill, Manitoba, to Montreal in late October after transporting nickel concentrates to Churchill, Manitoba, for rail delivery to Fort Saskatchewan.

The Ithaka Shipping Company bought Federal Explorer for the last time in 1960, and her owner, a Greek named J. Glikis, registered her in Nassau, Bahamas. She left Churchill on September 10, 1960, carrying supplies for the settlement and the nickel concentrate that the Clarke Steamship Company had chartered her to deliver from the Rankin Inlet nickel works. During the journey, she was caught in a strong gale and lost her rudder. On September 14, she dropped her anchor, but the anchors did not hold, causing her to run aground in Bird Cove, about ten miles east of Churchill.

The storm slammed her against the gravel bank, ripping her bottom completely out. Although the insurers, Lloyd’s of London, declared the ship a total loss and declared the grounding to be suspicious, they declined to pay the insurance claim. On September 18, the CCGS William Alexander of the Canadian Coast Guard rescued all 37 members of the crew, who then landed in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Due to the shallow water she grounded in, visitors could easily walk to the wreck during low tide, and her navigating equipment, as well as a large portion of her cargo, including two generators and some plywood panels, were salvaged.

Since 1960, the MV Ithaka has been resting upright on that reef.

Discover Churchill Tours offers guided hikes through the heart of polar bear territory to the SS Ithaka shipwreck at low tide from June 21 to September 21.

YouTube Video

The longest-living mammal is thought to be the bowhead whale, which can live for more than 200 years. The whale was likely bomb lanced sometime between those years, as evidenced by the discovery in May 2007 of a 15 m (49 ft) specimen caught off the Alaskan coast with the 90 mm (3.5 in) head of an explosive bomb lance of that same model. The whale’s age at the time of death was calculated to be between 115 and 130 years.

Life Expectancy of Other Whales

• Orca 50-90 years.
• Humpback 45-50 years.
• Beluga 35-50 years.
• Blue Whale 80- 90 years.
• North Pacific Right Whale 70 years.
• Short-Fin Pilot Whale 45 years.

After living in captivity for more than 50 years, Lolita the orca passed away. (18 August 2023) The orca, also known as Tokitae and Toki, displayed significant signs of distress over the past two days before she passed away, according to a Facebook post from the Miami Seaquarium. Lolita’s demise has been connected to a potential renal problem.

From 1914 to 1924, the Port Nelson dredger operated in Manitoba, Canada.

Dredging is excavation that takes place in shallow or open ocean waters, partially or entirely underwater. By collecting and moving bottom sediments, it helps with coastal protection, land reclamation, and coastal redevelopment while maintaining the navigability of waterways and ports. Dredging typically has two main goals: to recover valuable or useful material or to increase the depth of the water.

The Polson Ironworks in Toronto, Ontario was given a contract by Canada’s Department of Railways and Canals to build a sizable suction dredger to aid in the construction of Port Nelson, the nation’s first port on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. She was finished in March 1914 and towed to Hudson’s Bay, where she ran aground as soon as she arrived in September. She was thrown onto the man-made island she helped to create by a storm in 1924, where her wreck is still visible today.

She was 180 feet (55 meters) long, had a beam of 43 feet (13 meters), a draft of 6 feet (1.8 meters), carried a crew of 35, and had a displacement of 1200 tonnes.

Around 1,000 people made up Port Nelson’s peak population at the beginning of the 20th century, but it is now a ghost town.

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After being launched in Cleveland for her initial owners, R. John W. Moore, et al., on April 7, 1887, The Mather experienced a number of mishaps and ownership changes. On October 20, 1887, the tug Mystic tow her to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan with broken machinery as she made her way from Sandusky, Ohio to Duluth, Minnesota. She was sold to Samuel Mather, et al. of Cleveland, Ohio, on May 9th, 1888. She was harmed by a strong gale on August 11th, 1888, near Detour, Michigan, and later repaired in Cleveland. She was sold to James Pickard, et al. of the Interlake Transportation Company on April 13, 1889. She towed the Senator and the Winana in June 1889. She was defamed for sinking the steamer Ohio on September 30, 1890. A steamer that transported coal, the Mather “perished with an abnormal cargo of wheat.”

The wooden Mather was rammed on the starboard side near the aft hatch by the steel package freighter Brazil on November 22, 1891, at 2:00 am while she was headed down from Duluth, Minnesota to Buffalo, New York with a load of 58,000 bushels of wheat. This incident occurred in Whitefish Bay, which is located 8 miles (13 km) north of Point Iroquois, during a dense, heavy fog. On her starboard side, the collision left an 11-foot (3.4 m) hole. The crew of twenty sustained no casualties. Her crew managed to escape with her lifeboats during the 25 minutes she was at sea, but they were left without any personal belongings. The Brazil picked up the crew, who were then moved to the steamer Parks Foster to be taken to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The Brazil continued on to Duluth with her load of coal, where it was discovered that the collision had broken three frames and a stringer. The Mather was worth $50,000, and when combined with her wheat cargo, the loss was estimated to be over $226,000.

Bob Smith of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan made the discovery of the Mather’s wreck in May 1978, and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) has produced a substantial amount of film about it. The Mather’s artifacts were taken by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society for preservation and display in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, according to shipwreck historian Janice Gerred. The 1980 Michigan Antiquities Act, however, made it illegal to take items from shipwrecks on Great Lakes bottomlands. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum and GLSHS offices were raided by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment in 1992, and among the items seized were some that had been forcibly removed from the Samuel Mather in the 1980s. As a result of a 1993 settlement agreement with the GLSHS following the DNR raid on the museum in 1992, artifacts from the Mather’s wreck are on display in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum as a loan from the State of Michigan. The Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve has begun to protect the Samuel Mather’s wreck as part of an underwater museum.

According to Stonehouse, the Mather’s wreck is “one of the best known examples of a wooden freighter that is still available for examination.”The Mather, which sits upright with an intact deck and a largely intact stern superstructure, is a well-liked wreck site for scuba diving. She is in excellent condition overall, probably because she sank gradually enough for pressures to equalize. She has a mast that is 75 feet high, a deck that is 155 feet high, and a bottom that is 180 feet deep.

Despite not being the deepest dive in the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve, the Mather claimed the lives of three scuba divers: one in 1998, one in 1999, and one in 2012, despite not being the deepest dive.

Harrington, a Great Lakes diver, issues this warning: “Divers must be certain of their abilities and equipment” when diving the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve.

Winterizing is one of those joys (or necessary tasks – depending on your outlook) of boating in Canada, or almost anywhere in North America unless you boat in southern Florida or southern California.

“Necessary” in the sense of protecting onboard systems involving fresh water to prevent freezing over the winter layup period and causing expensive damage come spring. Potentially “joyful” in the sense that it provides an opportunity to clean, refresh, and protect your boat, the pastime that provides you and your family so much enjoyment.

The following is not intended to be a step-by-step series of instructions on how to complete each task as that would take pages. Rather, it is an overview of “to-do” items you should consider depending on your available time and talents. Those freshwater onboard systems must be winterized carefully and completely, whereas other items are optional but desirable to enhance the life, appearance, and enjoyment of your boat.

For the essential systems in the first section below, if you are not mechanically inclined or do not possess the necessary tools, it is highly recommended you have your favourite qualified marine dealer complete those tasks for you. Also, if these systems, especially the engine and drive train are still under manufacturer’s warranty, it is highly recommended that a qualified dealer perform these tasks and take responsibility for performing them “by the book.”

Essential Onboard Items Requiring Winterization

1) General Guidelines:

A) For detailed step-by-step winterizing procedures for all of the essential items below, consult the manufacturer’s owner’s manual for each one, or alternatively the manufacturer’s website will provide these step-by-step instructions to properly complete each task.

B) Compressed air is now being used more and more by marine dealers to “blow” the water out of lines, tanks, and pumps. They choose this method to eliminate the use of much of non-toxic antifreeze which has to be environmentally and properly disposed of. There are risks in using compressed air and if you are not careful, you could cause damage with over-pressurization. There is also the possibility of not eliminating all water gathered in nooks and crannies in the system.

C) Use of non-toxic antifreeze remains the winterizing method of choice as, if used properly, will circulate into every place where water has been and thus provide the necessary protection from freezing. Non-toxic antifreeze is propylene glycol and is safe for water systems. It is also relatively safer in case some should accidentally spill into the environment. Never ever use ethylene glycol, which is the antifreeze used in your automobile radiator as it is highly toxic both to you and our environment. Even when using non-toxic antifreeze for winterizing, take precautions to catch any overflow in containers as opposed to letting it spill onto land or into our lakes and rivers. This especially applies come springtime when you are flushing the non-toxic antifreeze out of your various systems. Any “used” antifreeze you are being rid of must be properly disposed of at a toxic waste disposal facility often found at your local municipal landfill facility.

Always choose a non-toxic antifreeze (pink in colour) which has the lowest possible freezing rating, usually prominently displayed on the front of the jug. A minus 50-degrees Celsius rating is common but if you can find some with an even lower rating, please spend the extra few dollars. The reason is that some small bits of water may still be trapped in places, thus diluting the antifreeze and reducing its effectiveness.

D) Almost all the systems listed below will have an inline filter/sea strainer near the source of the incoming water where it feeds the engine or pump as the case may be. This filter should be removed and cleaned or replaced depending whether it is reusable or not.

E) Before you haul your boat from the water for the final time prior to winterizing, add a fuel conditioner to your fuel tank (especially essential for diesel fuel), then then run your engine for at least fifteen minutes to ensure the conditioner is present throughout the fuel-feed system and into the engine. This includes running your generator, too. Then fill your fuel tank to prevent the build-up of condensation in your fuel tank over the winter layup period.

F) If you have a toilet on board, get a pumpout and a rinsing of the holding tank prior to any winterizing.

2) Inboard/Sterndrive Engines:

Remove the old crankcase oil in the fall so that the acidic deposits from combustion don’t sit inside your engine all winter. Warm up your engine to make the oil flow easier, then change the oil and oil filter, and run the engine again for a few minutes to allow the fresh oil to coat the internal surfaces. Change the fuel and water separating filter (if any). Run the engine briefly out of the water to force as much water out as possible. Replace with non-toxic antifreeze. This may involve using “earmuffs” over the water intake on the outdrive. Check the level and quality of antifreeze in the reservoir of the fresh-water cooling system (if any) and top up or replace as needed. Some manufacturers may recommend “fogging” the engine with a special lubricant. Always follow the manufacturer’s recommendations.

On an inboard drive system, check the transmission oil for quality and quantity and top up or replace if needed. For a sterndrive system, ensure the outdrive is vertical. Check for quality and quantity of gear oil in the housing. If any water or metal filings are present, now is the time to have the drive removed and the problem fixed. If no problems are spotted, top up or replace the lower unit gear oil according to manufacturer’s recommendations – sometimes every year; sometimes every two years. Tilt up the drive and inspect the rubber boots encasing cables, water lines, and exhaust. Any unusual wear, tears, or cracks will necessitate the replacing of these boots.

Finally, encase the propeller in a sturdy plastic bag to prevent rain or melt water from entering the propeller housing and freezing, or if necessary remove the propeller and store indoors.

3) Outboard and Jet Drive Engines:

Today’s outboard and jet drive engines are extremely sophisticated and it is important you follow manufacturer’s recommendations. Flour stroke engines will require engine oil and oil filter changes, as well as fuel filter and water-separating filter changes. Modern two-stroke engines are much more sophisticated than those of your father’s, and therefore it is most important to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations. The oil in the gear cases in the lower housing needs to be checked, as in the sterndrive as indicated in the above section. Engine “fogging” is generally recommended for older two-stroke outboards. Most outboards automatically drain cooling water from the engine block when in a vertical position. As with a sterndrive, bag or remove the propeller as indicated in the above section.

4) Toilets, Sinks, Showers, Transom Showers, Freshwater Washdowns, and Hot Water Tanks:

For a recirculating “chemical” toilet, add non-toxic antifreeze to the attached tank and operate the hand pump mechanism until some antifreeze comes through into the toilet bowl.

For manual, electric, and vacuum-style toilets with separate holding tanks, first drain the onboard fresh water tank. Then flush the toilet a few times to remove any remaining water in the lines. Remove the water supply hose at its source, insert into a jug of non-toxic antifreeze. Flush the toilet until only the pink antifreeze comes through. Leave some antifreeze in the bowl all winter.

For sinks and showers, first turn off (and tape off) the hot water heater electrical breaker, and drain the hot water tank using the drain spigot at the bottom of the tank. Then turn on the fresh water pump and open all faucets, cold and hot until only air comes out. Remove the water supply hoses, hot and cold at their source, and insert into a jug of non-toxic antifreeze. Open all faucets starting with the ones furthest from the source until only the pink antifreeze comes out each one. Don’t forget your transom shower, cockpit sink, and freshwater washdown as well as your ice maker.

Don’t forget your (usually raw water) anchor washdown and raw water cockpit washdowns, if any. These will be separate from your fresh water systems. Also remember your dockside pressure water inlet. Finally, run your shower sump pump to get rid of as much water as possible and then add antifreeze and pump again until the pink comes out. Catch all antifreeze being expelled by sink drains or the shower sump drain and any other drains on the outside of your boat using jugs or basins.

Air Conditioner systems must also be winterized using antifreeze as they utilize raw water pumped in and out. These are tricky, and it is important to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines for winterizing.

Finally, scrub your bilge with a biodegradable cleaner to remove any oil film and residue. Rinse with water and pump your bilge (while catching all effluent on the outside of the boat), then put antifreeze in your bilge and bilge it again. Then remove your hull drain plug and put it in a safe place for the winter where you will not forget to replace it prior to launching.

5) Non-Essential but Desirable Winterizing Activities

When the boat comes out of the water for the final time and while it is still wet, clean the hull bottom with a scrub brush and biodegradable cleaners if necessary. Later you can decide on full topsides and hullsides washing and waxing. Remove all contents from the anchor and transom lockers, clean and dry them thoroughly (as well as lines and fenders), then dry these lockers prior to reloading the contents.

Unless your boat is destined for indoor heated storage, condensation will form on any enclosed surfaces which include the interior and the cockpit since it will be enclosed with a tarp or shrink wrap. Purchase some moisture-absorbing products readily available at any marine dealer and spread these containers liberally throughout the enclosed area per the instructions on the product. This is all in aid of the prevention of mold and mildew.

To further aid in this regard, remove as many cushions, pillows, bedding, curtains, PFD’s etc. as possible and store them aired-out indoors. Remove as much canvas as practical and first clean and then store similarly. Open as many hatches and cupboards as possible and leave them propped open. Do the same with any microwave, fridge, or freezer doors. Leave all remaining cushions, mattresses, etc. propped up to let air circulate around them.

Ensure all batteries are fully charged and preferably remove them from the boat for the winter. Clean the terminals. Finally, ensure the battery switches and shore power are all turned off. You are now ready to tarp or shrink wrap ensuring that there is venting to allow air circulation. If you are storing your boat on a trailer, then best to rest the trailer frame on blocks to take the weight off the suspension and tires. It is also a great theft deterrent.

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The Henry Steinbrenner freighter had a 31-person crew when it sank in a Lake Superior storm in 1953, according to a recent discovery. It went down, south of Isle Royale.

The Great Lakes freighter SS Henry Steinbrenner was primarily built for the iron ore, coal, and grain trades on the Great Lakes. It measured 427 feet (130 m) in length, 50 feet (15 m) in width, and 28 feet (8.5 m) in depth. She was launched as hull number 14 by the Jenks Ship Building Co. of Port Huron, Michigan after being ordered by the Kinsman Transit Co. of Cleveland, Ohio. She had a forward forecastle with crew cabins on top, followed by a cabin and pilot house. With the exception of 12 hatches outfitted with telescoping type hatch covers, the middle section was a long, nearly flat deck over the cargo holds.

The Steinbrenner’s first two decades on the Great Lakes were full of excitement. On December 6, 1909, the Steinbrenner was loaded with iron ore and headed downward when she collided with the nearly-new SS Harry A. Berwind on the St. Marys River. On May 10, 1910, the Steinbrenner was recovered, repaired, and put back into service after it sank in the river and was deemed a total constructive loss. She would go back to her rather uneventful trading routine until she ran into another ship again. She hit the SS John McCartney Kennedy this time in a murky Whitefish Bay, but she was able to stay afloat. After spending $5000 on repairs, she started trading again.

Final Voyage

On May 10, 1953, at 5:11 AM, the 52-year-old ship sailed from Superior, Wisconsin, carrying close to 7000 tons of iron ore for the Lake Erie steel mills. Although the weather was favourable at the time, forecasts for the rest of the day called for rougher conditions. For Captains at this time, setting sail despite unfavourable forecasts wasn’t unusual. The majority of Captains and crews had experienced several storms during their careers, but weather reports were less reliable than contemporary forecasts. Later that afternoon, the forecast gale hit, battering the Steinbrenner with strong winds and huge waves. Captain Albert Stiglin secured his ship’s deck but did not order his crew to cover the twelve “Telescoping” leaf-type hatch covers, which were not watertight and allowed some water to seep into the cargo holds. Around eight o’clock in the evening, one of the leaves on hatch number 11 came loose, allowing water to pour into the hold. Crew members were sent to secure the cover, but as the storm grew more intense, 80 mph (129 km/h) winds and big waves managed to work the leaf loose once more. The storm was forcing open doors and vents, which complicated the situation. It was now too dangerous for crews to be on the deck. Despite the start of the pumps, the flooding persisted. Although Captain Stiglin made an effort to prevent further damage from the waves, by morning other hatch covers had become loose and the ship was struggling to make forward motion.

The ship was doomed as soon as a few more manoeuvres were completed. On May 11, 1953, just after 7:00 AM, an SOS was broadcast. The crew gathered at the forward life raft and the rear lifeboats at 7:35 AM when the whistle signalled an abandon ship. There was confusion as the ship sank, and several men were hurt or ended up in the water. 15 nautical miles (28 km; 17 mi) south of Isle Royale Light, the ship quickly sank. Following the SOS, a search for survivors was launched by the steamers Wilfred Sykes, Joseph H. Thompson (at the time the largest ship on the lakes), D.M. Clemson, D.G. Kerr, William E. Corey, and the Canadian ship Hochelaga.

Six men were taking refuge in the life raft when it was discovered by the Joseph H. Thompson, which was being commanded by Captain Robert F. Leng. One lifeboat was discovered by the D.M. Clemson, which was commanded by Captain Arthur M. Everett. Captain Everett carefully manoeuvred the Clemson to position the lifeboat in the ship’s lee in the face of strong winds and choppy seas, and then had the survivors hoisted aboard with ropes. After that, the men were brought to the captain’s quarters where they were given hot food and clean clothing. The men from the other life boat were saved by the Wilfred Sykes.

17 men ultimately perished in the tragedy. The crew was blamed for not covering the hatches with tarpaulins, but in a storm of that size, even tarpaulins might not have been sufficient to keep the Henry Steinbrenner afloat. The sinking of the Steinbrenner made Great Lakes vessel owners more determined to retrofit some of their older ships with watertight single piece hatch covers.

Norm Bragg, who survived this wreck in Lake Superior, was a watchman on board the SS Daniel J. Morrell when it sank in Lake Huron. He helped that crew understand their plight, gave quick advice and said, “It’s been good to know you.”

17 crew members died and 14 were rescued from the frigid waters.

In September 2023, Jerry Eliason and Ken Merryman found the ship in 750 feet (230 meters) of water, surrounded by its iron ore cargo.

An overview of Scubagaskets Products and Services to the scuba diving industry

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At Milwaukee’s Wolf & Davidson Shipyard, the wooden steamer William H Wolf was launched on August 6, 1887. For the Wolf & Davidson Steamship Company, she was constructed. The Wolf’s dimensions were 285 feet long, 42.3 feet wide, and 19.2 feet deep. Georgia pine, which is typically only used on coasting vessels, made up the majority of her ceiling, deck beams, and deck. Her oak beams were shipped in from Kentucky and Indiana.

There was a sizable crowd present for the launch of the William H, Wolf , a vessel that was exquisitely constructed. On the dock of the Northwestern Fuel Company, which is across the river from the shipyard, spectators gathered. She caused a huge wave that swept up in the dock ten or twelve feet, damaging the coal sheds and partially collapsing the dock, which was unfortunate for the spectators as she slid into the river.

The Milwaukee Sentinel’s description of the scene from August 7, 1887

“A suppressed cry of horror rose to the lips of the 3,000 or more people who witnessed the launch of the mammoth new steamer William H Wolf yesterday afternoon at Wolf & Davidson’s shipyard, as simultaneously with that occurrence a staging on the Northwestern Fuel company’s dock gave way and the seventy-five persons upon it were precipitated either upon the dock below or into the river. The spectators saw the huge vessel make her plunge as the last block was knocked away, a great wave was caused by the displacement of water, and through the wall of spray the platform was seen to lift and then crash down upon the docks below, burying many of the people beneath the fall timbers, maiming, mangling and wounding a score of the unfortunates. The cries of the unfortunates, the hoarse shouts of men rushing to the rescue, the shrieks of women and children, the splashing of the waves mingled in a sound that was painful discord to the ears of the horror-stricken spectators. The accident caused two fatalities, several person are so badly injured that death will probably ensue and twenty or more others are badly injured. Ten or twenty persons were thrown into the river, but it is not known whether all were rescued. The lifesaving crew and police dragged the river in the vicinity for two hours after the accident without bringing any bodies to the surface. Still many people believe a number were drowned and thought that the suction of the boat dragged the bodies out of reach of the searchers.”

Milwaukee Sentinel

The Wolf was a popular steamer and enjoyed a successful career up until October 20, 1921, when she caught fire while in the St. Clair River while downward bound. On the Canadian side of the channel, across from Marine City, she sank after burning to the water’s surface. When the fire was discovered, she had just finished unloading her pulpwood cargo at Port Huron and was heading down to dry dock. Of the 22 people on board, two were lost. She was floated, taken south of Fawn Island, and sunk in 1925. She now rests in about 50 feet of water and is a well-liked dive site. The William H. Wolf, is the largest wreck in the St. Clair River. The engine and propeller are still at the site, along with its two intact boilers.

YouTube Video 2012

“I was able to get out for one last adventure before a rainy weekend ahead of us. I found a bunch of stuff, including a peculiar old “quack medicine bottle” (Nerviline) from the early 1900s.”

Saltwater Sean

If you enjoy watching old-style western television programs, you may occasionally have come across a plot involving a travelling medicine wagon and a person posing as a “Doc”. This could be regarded as the start of marketing campaigns in the early 1900s. The “doctor,” who was in charge, would send representatives to neighbouring towns to promote the show, hang banners and posters, and pique interest in the wonder drug that would be displayed. Some of these townsfolk would seem to be suffering from a condition that the elixir would miraculously cure. Despite the fact that these medications were very popular, the ingredients were not controlled. The majority of these elixirs contained morphine, cocaine, and significant amounts of alcohol; some had alcohol content of over 30%. A “Cure For What Ails You”

At the time, Nerviline, one of these medications, was promoted as a treatment for neuralgia, toothaches, rheumatic pains, sore throat, lumbago, sore, aching joints, muscular strains, sprains, chest soreness from colds, chilblains, hoarseness, and insect bites. a panacea for all ailments! The packaging for Nerviline included a rectangular, transparent, glass bottle without a cork with visible mould lines and information embossed on the bottle.

Medicine Shows became less and less popular as people started to doubt the efficacy of these tonics. The government started paying attention after some of these “medicines” caused terrible side effects and even deaths. The Food and Drug Administration was eventually established after the Pure Food and Drug Act was eventually passed in 1906.

About Nerviline

After having studied at Queen’s University, Neil C. Polson established a drug business in Kingston in 1877. N.C. Polson & Co. became widely known across North America as a druggist and chemical manufacturer. They manufactured “Catarrhozone” and “Nerviline” under the Polson Co. umbrella. One of their products, Catarrhozone, was widely advertised as an inhaled germ-killer and remedy for all respiratory ailments. The Vapor treatment was meant to be dropped onto a small piece of wool held inside the portable wood inhaler, then inhaled periodically through the mouth. The company Polson Co. also produced Nerviline, a remedy for every ailment. On a bottle labelled “Polson’s Tasteless Preparation, the ingredients are cod liver oil and is pleasant and palatable along with doses for adults and children. Neither a confirmation that the aforementioned bottle was Nerviline nor a list of the ingredients for Nerviline can be found. It’s possible that Nerviline included morphine, cocaine, and a sizable amount of alcohol but unknown.

The United States and the West Indies received shipments of Polson’s goods from Kingston, Ontario.

In 1893, Polson was elected mayor of Kingston.

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How to install the 003 size o-ring on SPG swivel without damaging the new o-ring and in a matter of seconds.

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The beginning of this video states “Stunts in this video were performed by experienced freedivers: always dive within your limits”

Garrett Clement teamed up with Jenna Blake to explore the underwater playground found in the rivers of Vancouver Island.

Underwater diving that relies on breath-holding until resurfacing rather than the use of breathing apparatus like scuba gear is known as freediving, free-diving, free diving or breath-hold diving. The depths and duration of freediving are constrained by physiological factors such as the limits of breath-hold, immersion in water, and high ambient pressure.

History

With the exception of the sporadic use of reeds and leather breathing bladders, freediving without the aid of mechanical devices was the only option in ancient times. The divers experienced the same issues divers do today, such as blacking out during a breath hold and decompression sickness. Ancient cultures used freediving to help with food gathering, gather resources like sponge and pearl, recover sunken treasures, and support military operations.

Freediving Today

In the last few years, competitions for freedivers take place in lakes, the open ocean, or swimming pools. Divers competing in these events are scored according to their weight, depth of dive, and time spent holding their breath. Each of these criteria may have a different significance depending on the discipline.

Never dive alone is the most important freediving rule, and regardless of your skill level, it is continually emphasized at all freediving courses. Always go with an experienced partner, ideally one that is on the same level as you or even a level higher. Your companion must understand basic safety rules, how to respond in the event of a blackout, and how to administer first aid.

Freediving can be very risky, especially if you don’t have the proper equipment. It’s a sport that is almost entirely focused on swimming through the ocean’s depths on a single breath. Make any errors, incorrect assumptions, or unwarranted demands; you might not take another breath ever again.

Compared to scuba diving, the death rate for competitive freediving is low, but deaths do happen, usually from blackouts. AIDA (or an equivalent) freediving authority oversees each international competition, and some competitors have been known to dive more than 300 feet on one breath.

In June 2012, an Austrian freediver, went deeper than his own personal “No Limit” with a freedive to 253.2 meters (831 ft) suffering injury in the process. On land, he still struggles with balance and co-ordination, but not underwater. He keeps performing deep free dives.

It’s important to be well-trained, just like with scuba diving, and to “dive within your limits,” as the video advised.

David Attenborough investigates the extraordinary ways that animals perceive and create sound, as well as the significant role that sound plays in the lives of animals worldwide, from birth to survival as adults and mating.

This innovative series puts sound front and centre for the first time using cutting-edge recording techniques and 360-degree Dolby Atmos soundscapes.

We see how young caiman communicate with one another inside the egg, how lions and hyaenas use sound to fight in the dark, how a strange fish confused locals with its eerie hum, and how some birds have mastered the art of mimicry to remarkable effect.

Secret World of Sound with David Attenborough will immerse viewers in a world of wonder, insight, and cutting-edge scientific findings.

Secret World of Sound with David Attenborough was commissioned for Sky Documentaries by Zai Bennett, MD of Content, Sky UK&I, Poppy Dixon, Director of Documentaries & Factual and Tom Barry, Commissioning Editor.

Working on scenes for the upcoming series Secret World of Sound with Humblebeefilms and CBC required Tavish Campbell and colleagues to spend the last two springs working long days and nights in shallow water.

Coming to Skytv and Netflix in early 2024.

We’ll be showcasing Chris’s videos in collaboration with The Scuba News Canada. These are educational and informative, and Chris admits that he hopes to inspire people to try scuba diving. On TikTok, he has over 145,000 followers from all over the world. He makes regular scuba diving adventure and instructional videos, as well as answering viewer questions in his videos about anything scuba or water-related. He feels seasoned divers can stay current with the new dive industry and training philosophies, so his channel has something for the novice to experienced divers.

About Chris Foisey

Chris was certified at Dans Dive Shop in 2011 and started working there that summer. After a few years, he started to pursue technical diving as well as becoming a Padi Dive Master. Over the years he has built his certifications up to a Level 1 cave diver and trimix decompression diver, Padi Master Scuba Diver Trainer as well as a hydrostatic technician and a full-time employee at Dan’s Dive Shop. Over the last 10 years, Chris has completed over 1200 dives all over the world and personally certified over 300 students.

Follow Chris on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube & Modern Diver

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For one of the dives of the year’s highlights, Garrett Clement got together with a couple of friends for a Campbell River salmon run via snorkelling.

An annual fish migration phenomenon known as a salmon run occurs when many salmonid species, which are typically born in freshwater and spend the majority of their adult lives in the ocean downstream, swim back upstream to the upper reaches of rivers to spawn on the gravel beds of small creeks.

Salmon are anadromous, which means they spend their early years in rivers or lakes before migrating to the sea where they spend their adult years and put on the majority of their body mass. The adults return to the upstream rivers to reproduce once they reach sexual maturity. (2-3 years) Usually, they return with uncanny accuracy to the river where they gave birth, sometimes even to the exact spawning grounds. It is believed that once they are close to their natal river, they use their sense of smell to focus on the river entrance and even their natal spawning ground. When they are in the ocean, it is thought that they use magnetoreception to locate the general location of their natal river.

What takes place when salmon spawn?

Thousands of fertilized eggs are laid in the gravel by salmon once they reach their spawning grounds. With a male standing by her side, each female digs a nest. The female makes a depression where she releases her eggs using her tail. The male also exhales a cloud of milt at the same time.

Campbell River can legitimately claim to be the “Salmon Capital of the World” due to the presence of five different species of salmon. Sport fishers have long been drawn to the east coast of Campbell River, Vancouver Island. Naturalists are equally compelled to look for the pink, coho, chinook, chum, and sockeye as well.

The annual salmon run is a significant feeding event for predators like grizzly bears and bald eagles. Salmon post-spawning deaths have significant ecological repercussions because the nitrogen, sulphur, carbon, and phosphorus-rich nutrients in their carcasses are transferred from the ocean and released to inland aquatic ecosystems, terrestrial animals (like bears), and the wetlands and riparian woodlands next to rivers.

Why do salmon turn red during spawning?

Salmon alter their colour to entice a spawning partner. To get back to their home stream, lay eggs, and dig their nest, Pacific salmon expend all of their energy. When they get back to freshwater, (after traveling hundreds of miles) the majority of them stop eating. They run out of energy after spawning to make the trek back to the ocean. All Pacific salmon species and the majority of Atlantic salmon (about 70%) die after spawning, and the salmon life cycle then restarts with the new generation of hatchlings.

Salmon in particular, and fish in general, do not taste good after spawning primarily due to their low fat content. It is advised to consume them prior to spawning.

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According to Wayne T. Joy, late summer brings Sea Horses to the waters around Halifax. This video was taken at Paddy’s Head, September 9, 2023. A great find and video!

Sizes of seahorses range from 0.6 to 13.8 in (1.5 to 35 cm). Their long snouted heads, bent necks, and distinctive trunk and tail give them an equine appearance, earning them the name. Despite being bony fish, they lack scales and instead have a thin layer of skin stretched over a series of bony plates that are distributed throughout their bodies in rings. The number of rings varies depending on the species.They are also protected from predators by the armour of bony plates, and because of this outer skeleton, they no longer have ribs. Seahorses propel themselves forward while swimming upright, a trait that their close relatives, the pipefish, who swim horizontally, do not share.

The pectoral fins, which are situated behind their eyes on either side of the head, are used for steering. They lack the fish-specific caudal fin. Their prehensile tail is made up of square-shaped rings that can only be unlocked under the most difficult circumstances.They can grow and reabsorb spiny appendages depending on their habitat, and they are skilled at camouflaging.

There is insufficient information to determine the risk of seahorse extinction, and the possibility of losing more seahorses is still a concern because data are lacking on the sizes of the various seahorse populations, as well as other issues like how many seahorses are dying each year, how many are being born, and how many are used as souvenirs. Seahorse habitats like coral reefs and seagrass beds are becoming less and less viable. Additionally, bycatch has a significant cumulative impact on seahorses in many places, where it is thought that 37 million of them are taken each year across 21 nations.

The male seahorses’ most remarkable trait is that they can become pregnant and give birth, which makes them a rare animal adaptation. Usually, male seahorses carry their eggs for two to four weeks. Then, 100 to 1,000 babies are born at a time.

Deep Perspective Diving (Wayne T. Joy)

Last year I dipped everyday in October to raise money and awareness for sewage in our seas. The campaign that was sparked by Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and was completed by hundreds of thousands of people with a shared goal to make a splash about a really important cause is back on.

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/people/southsea-campaigner-who-completed-dip-a-day-challenge-in-aid-of-surfers-against-sewage-wants-to-feel-safe-in-the-water-3915984

The challenge being to take to the sea, a pool, a puddle, a cold bath, a lake, any watery space to dip in what will almost defiantly be cold water  to stand up for the right to clean water and less s*** in our oceans.

https://www.sas.org.uk/take-action/fundraise-with-us/dip-a-day/

A fantastic resource that SAS offer is a map to show up to date water quality results for people to decide if they swim or not. This kind of map should not have to exist in the first place but it allows people to try to swim more safely and to monitor their local coast and its wellbeing.

https://www.sas.org.uk/water-quality/sewage-pollution-alerts/

The alerts on many occasions have left swimmers, surfers, paddle boarders etc angry about the risks that seem to be heightening when thinking about accessing water for sport and recreation. Enough is enough. This campaign allows the people to be heard and for us to stand together as one about a cause that affects us all.

If you can, get involved with the challenge in October. If the challenge seems too big then tailor it to meet your ability and time allowances and just take part in any capacity you can. More people contributing makes more noise and that’s what we need.

‘The benefits of wild blue spaces to our health and wellbeing are irrefutable. And immersing yourself in cold water can calm the chaos, raise your dopamine and give you that zingy post-dip feeling. The Ocean helps us thrive. But it needs your help to thrive too. So, let’s Dip A Day in October to boost our wellbeing and raise funds to support our ocean-saving campaigns.’ SAS

Together we will change things. Join me and Surfers Against Sewage this October.

The Diveheart Foundation has helped thousands of people with disabilities experience the freedom and adventure of scuba diving. Founder and President Jim Elliot joined Daytime Chicago to discuss the advantages of scuba therapy.

Diveheart is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy, and related activities. 

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

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Silent colour 16mm film of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s launch by R.J. Anderson and Company on June 7, 1958. This video depicts the large crowds of spectators at Great Lakes Engineering Works, (shipbuilders in Detroit, Michigan) on the river in boats, and on the stage that has been erected in front of the boat. The launch is recorded from the port quarter of the freighter and the port bow once more. After several shots of the crowd and the freighter floating in the slip, the movie comes to an end.

Read The Scuba News Canada Article on the Edmund Fitzgerald

Since 1995, diving at the Edmund Fitzgerald wreck location has been prohibited, including the use of side-scanning sonar gear. Huge fines will be imposed. No bodies were ever recovered from the tragedy and the wreck scene is considered a grave site.

YouTube Video

I like night diving! There is an aspect appealing to me, the biologist happening during night dives, and there is a very powerful psychological effect of night diving as well. To me, few things are as relaxing as being underwater at night, in the middle of the darkness, in warm water, with no one there to bother me, just some interesting wildlife around me, popping up out of nowhere.

If you’d like to learn how to night dive, most certification agencies (I teach via PADI) offer instruction for night diving via their advanced courses. I myself did my first ever night dive outside of such a course (2002 in Egypt!) but it’s a good idea to get some instruction before heading our for a dive at night. I’d like to share some of the more subtle points which I have found to make my night dives better:

• Don’t shine your light right at your buddy’s eyes AND don’t shine it into the eyes of the critters you want to observe. Keeping the center of the cone of your dive light 30 cm away from the fish or shrimp you observe will freak the animals out less.
• Less is sometimes more with dive lights. Your eyes will adapt to darkness. The critters will be spooked out less by dimmer lights. These days you can get really high-powered dive lights, I have seen them with up to 10000 lumen. These are similar in power to what you find on the front of an off-road racecar – there is no need for this kind of power unless you film larger (wide-angle) scenes.
• Similarly, some critters react less adversely to red than to white light.
• When you want to show a critter to your buddy, remember where it is and stop shining your dive light on it for a moment. This will make the critter less likely to escape or burry itself into the sand. Then, get a hold of your buddy, lead him or her to the critter and then shine the light on the animal again.

What You’ll See

I was really lucky in the last few months, with excellent diving conditions in the part of the Philippines where I live, and lots of interesting small nocturnal animals being active. In April and May I observed and filmed a variety of juvenile scorpionfishes, crabs which I had to contact experts to get an ID for, and a school of vertically swimming fish which used my video light as a hunting aid. Check the footage out here:

This is a video from one of the best night diving sites in Dauin, Negros Oriental, Philippines, the artificial reef in front of the former El Dorado resort. The top attraction there, in my opinion, are the 2-3 individuals of large basking stars, brittle stars (echinoderms widely related to sea stars) which unfold to an area of almost a square meter, and become nocturnal plankton filtering nets.

Siquijor, the island next to us, also has excellent night diving. The great variety of crustacean, especially the marble shrimp, always intrigues me over there. Lots of different flatworms, too.

I hope you enjoyed these tips and this footage.

Learn more and see more great articles from Klaus at: https://pacificklaus.com

I don’t often use the word “epic,” but this is the most epic expedition I have ever planned. I could not be more proud of the team that helped accomplish this unique experience of diving in a glacial moulin in Alaska. Only a handful of people have ever tried this. A moulin is basically a sinkhole in a glacier, a vertical channel in ice that is formed in a glacier by flowing water. These crevasses can be dry or water-filled. They are part of a glacier’s internal “plumbing” that carry meltwater from the surface to deep inside and under the glacier. The water-filled moulins might be still, have a little drainage, or have a plug which can suddenly release if the glacier moves, causing the water to drain very quickly and forcefully. This is why glacier diving is very rare and challenging: this is not a tourist diving destination. We set out to dive these in the winter when the glacier would possibly be more stable. We had seven to 14 inches of ice on the surface, depending on the location. After Alex cut the ice hole, the water would steam like a hot tub: the balmy 32f water was much warmer than the-15f / -26c degree air temps. The hole would instantly start icing back over, requiring regular clearing. We had an extensive safety plan in place, as well as very experienced topside support. We used harnesses and ropes that were tended on the surface and anchored in by ice screws. If the moulin suddenly drained, we would have a chance at making it out.

Our ride was a R44 helicopter operated by Mark and it ran like clockwork. We had to take multiple flights each way every day to move gear and people out to our basecamp on the glacier. The ride was amazing flying over mountains, moose and a few sheep. We only had about 7 hours of daylight to work with so every hour counted. Everything froze. We experienced gear issues in the freezing temps that I’ve never experienced before. Masks covered in ice, inflators freezing shut instantly, 7 reg failures in one day, ice forming in front of our eyes on the cameras dome ports and on our Seiko Ice Diver watch faces. My safety rope even froze to the glaciers ceiling at one point. I had equipment issues I have never encountered before.

We were most definitely on the edge of what we could physically do and the limitations of our gear. When we finally got underwater, the experience was magical, worth every bit of effort. I was blown away by the gin-clear water. It felt like swimming in air! We had just entered an ice cave, pure white glacial ice in every direction. The formations and cracks in the ice were stunning. Tunnels and long pressure cracks that refilled with clear ice just stood out as they flowed down the walls at least 30 feet. There were tunnels heading into the glacier, and light just bounced off the reflective white surfaces. We swam about 100 feet down one of the tunnels before it got very narrow and headed deeper into the glacier. We experienced formations that looked like giant egg cartons, and even ice so clear it froze bubbles into it. I ran my hand along the smooth, cold, and silky ice wall, just amazed at it all. I was diving inside a glacier! Someday this piece I just touched will calve off and become an iceberg. The thought of that just blew my mind.

I personally spent a total of four hours underwater on four dives in two different locations. One of the dives was 100 minutes. When I surfaced after the dive that day, my dry gloves were covered in ice and frozen in place on my Santi dry suit. My watch was encased in ice and frozen to my suit as well. In fact, about the only gear that had no failures in the extreme cold were the Seiko Ice Diver watches; they all kept happily ticking away. We really put those watches to the test, and I was truly impressed. I find it hard to truly wrap words around this amazing adventure and incredibly beautiful place. A challenging project such as this requires an experienced and professional team. For this to be a success, Everyone toughed it out and we got to explore and come back with some incredible images. These were long days and at night we would hit our beds, bodies aching, feet still cold, noses still sore, worn out. But oh man, it was worth it!

This expedition would not have been possible without the expert surface and air support of Alex Fancher Mark Fleenor along with my dive team Jeff Lindsay and Rick Witter. We spent months planning this in great detail. Also a big thanks to Bryan Smith and David Pearson from Reel Water Productions for capturing the entire journey. I can’t wait to see the final video! Lastly thank you to Seiko Luxe USA for supporting adventure and exploration! I hope to return, maybe in the summer when it’s “warmer and my eyelashes won’t be frozen together!

Becky Schott

Story Submitted by Becky Kagan Schott Of Liquid Diving

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The Northerner was a two-masted schooner measuring 81 feet in length (24.7 meters). On November 29, 1868, she went down in Lake Michigan, five miles southeast of Port Washington, Wisconsin, United States. The ship’s hull is submerged in 130 feet (40 meters) of water.

The depth of Northerner is somewhat debatable. According to some sources, the Northerner is under 130 feet (40 meters) of water, while others claim it is 135 feet (41 meters). The foremast has fallen but is still attached to the wreck. The mast in the middle of the ship is no longer on or near the wreck. The ship is mostly intact, though the pilothouse was ripped off when it sank.

John Oades built the Northerner in Clayton, New York, in 1850. Henry T. Bacon, a New York merchant, was her original owner, and Russell Disbrow was her co-owner and operator. Northerner primarily operated on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River at the time. She was damaged in a storm on Lake Ontario in 1859 and rebuilt at Wells Island, New York. The ship was sold to Chicago, Illinois, interests in 1863. Northerner was then involved in lumber shipping on Lake Michigan.

Prior to the development of road and rail networks, the Northerner was a rare example of a vessel type that was critical to the Great Lakes’ economic and transportation infrastructure. Lakeshoring schooners like the Northerner served as an important economic and cultural link for hinterland communities.

The Northerner suffered hull damage while loading at a pier in Amsterdam, Wisconsin, in 1868, and was subsequently lost while being towed by the Cayauga to Milwaukee for repairs. There were no fatalities.

This shipwreck is protected by both state (Michigan) and federal laws (USA). Divers visiting this shipwreck must not remove any artifacts or structures. Anyone apprehended and convicted of removing “artifacts/structures” faces confiscation of their boats, cars, and equipment, as well as up to two years in prison and stiff fines. Anyone with information about illegal artifact removal should contact the Michigan Department of Natural Resources at 800-292-7800.

Why do we love diving in Grenada? Our Adaptive Divers and Dive Buddies tell you why!

Diveheart is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy, and related activities. 

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

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We are so grateful for our accommodations at True Blue Bay Resort in Grenada last month! Owner Russ has been in the hotel business for a long time, and he is keen to make his resort accessible and safe for persons with disabilities.

Diveheart is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy, and related activities. 

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

• https://www.instagram.com/diveheart
• https://www.facebook.com/diveheart
• https://www.twitter.com/diveheart

Melibe leonina, also known as the lion nudibranch, lion’s mane nudibranch, or hooded nudibranch, is a species of predatory nudibranch belonging to the Tethydidae family. Between Alaska and Baja California, this species can be found in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The reproductive organs of Nudibranch, a simultaneous hermaphrodite, are on the right side of the body. Individuals have internal fertilization and are capable of laying up to 30,000 eggs at once. Eggs are laid by both males and females in protective ribbons that the mucus gland secretes. Egg capsules with 15 to 25 eggs are found in ribbons. After about 10 days, the eggs will change into larva, which will eventually hatch into veligers. Although they initially have shells, they lose them after hatching. The only time mating has been seen is during the day.

YouTube Video by Garrett Clement of Uncharted Odyssey

Sara Filmalter MD, CASQSM practices family medicine and sports medicine at Mayo Clinic Florida. She’s also a breath-hold diver or free diver. She discusses the benefits of breath training during Mayo Clinic Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine 2023 Conference.

Diveheart is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy, and related activities. 

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

• https://www.instagram.com/diveheart
• https://www.facebook.com/diveheart
• https://www.twitter.com/diveheart

For an upcoming episode of Northwestel Community TV, Jeremy Macdonald and his diver buddies went looking for gold in a big way at Hidden Lake in the NorthWest Territories: with a floating gold sluice box and dredge.

Gold Dredge

A gold dredge is a type of placer mining machine that uses water and mechanical methods to extract gold from sand, gravel, and dirt.

The first gold dredges were large, multi-story machines built in the first half of the twentieth century. The fundamental concept of obtaining gold through placer mining has not changed since antiquity. Because gold is heavy/dense, gold in sand or soil will settle to the bottom, and dirt, sand, and rock will wash away, leaving the gold behind.

A large gold dredge excavates material (sand, gravel, dirt, etc.) mechanically using steel “buckets” on a circular, continuous “bucketline” at the front end of the dredge. Water is then used to sort/sift the material. The buckets on large gold dredges dump the material into a steel rotating cylinder (a type of trommel known as “the screen”) that is sloped downward toward a rubber belt (the stacker) that carries away oversize material (rocks) and dumps the rocks behind the dredge. Many holes in the cylinder allow undersized material (including gold) to fall into a sluice box. Tailings are the materials that have been washed or sorted. The rocks that are deposited behind the dredge (by the stacker) are referred to as “tailing piles.” The screen holes were designed to screen out rocks (for example, 3/4 inch holes in the screen sent anything larger than 3/4 inch to the stacker).

Hidden Lake

Hidden Lake is one of the most picturesque lakes east of Yellowknife. On a bright day, the lake appears aquamarine. The fish can be seen swimming in the crystal clear water.

Hidden Lake is a water-based park that has yet to be developed.

Dive Report

Jeremy reported the dive was around 50 feet and they “ground gold”. When asked if he was a millionaire, his response was “Nowhere close to breaking even”.

Follow Jeremy’s dive adventures on Shit, I found Diving in YK on Facebook and YouTube.

Replying to a diver’s inquiry. Diver almost hit by cargo ship. Who’s at fault? Let’s talk about it.

We’ll be showcasing Chris’s videos in collaboration with The Scuba News Canada. These are educational and informative, and Chris admits that he hopes to inspire people to try scuba diving. On TikTok, he has over 145,000 followers from all over the world. He makes regular scuba diving adventure and instructional videos, as well as answering viewer questions in his videos about anything scuba or water-related. He feels seasoned divers can stay current with the new dive industry and training philosophies, so his channel has something for the novice to experienced divers.

About Chris Foisey

Chris was certified at Dans Dive Shop in 2011 and started working there that summer. After a few years, he started to pursue technical diving as well as becoming a Padi Dive Master. Over the years he has built his certifications up to a Level 1 cave diver and trimix decompression diver, Padi Master Scuba Diver Trainer as well as a hydrostatic technician and a full-time employee at Dan’s Dive Shop. Over the last 10 years, Chris has completed over 1200 dives all over the world and personally certified over 300 students.

Follow Chris on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube & Modern Diver

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Diveheart Founder and President, Jim Elliott sat down with Mayo Clinic Florida Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology Dr. Klaus Torp to discuss scuba diving. Diveheart attended the Mayo Clinic Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine Conference along with Doctors with various specialties. The theme of the conference was “keeping divers diving”.

Diveheart is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy, and related activities. 

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

• https://www.instagram.com/diveheart
• https://www.facebook.com/diveheart
• https://www.twitter.com/diveheart

Diveheart Founder and President, Jim Elliott, along with Executive Director Tinamarie Hernandez presented at Mayo Clinic Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine Conference 2023. Diveheart’s expertise in Adaptive Scuba and many inspiring stories tied in perfectly with the theme of the conference, “keep divers diving”.

Diveheart is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy, and related activities. 

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

• https://www.instagram.com/diveheart
• https://www.facebook.com/diveheart
• https://www.twitter.com/diveheart

The biggest scuba o-ring range in the world. With 960 products all related to scuba gear maintenance. Global shipping policy with flat DHL rates.

Ready for dispatch the next day. In addition to our premium quality o-rings we also offer scuba tools, lubricants, spare parts, and accessories.

Learn more at https://www.scubagaskets.com

Dr. Carolyn Genacou works in Family Medicine and Urgent Care. She discusses scuba diving as a form of physical fitness during Mayo Clinic Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine 2023 Conference.

Diveheart is a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to build confidence, independence and self-esteem in the lives of children, adults and veterans with disabilities through scuba diving, scuba therapy, and related activities. 

For more information, visit https://www.Diveheart.org

• https://www.instagram.com/diveheart
• https://www.facebook.com/diveheart
• https://www.twitter.com/diveheart