| Carl D. Bradley Expedition
8/2/2007 to 8/3/2007
Charter: Molly V, Capt. Bill Prince http://www.nordicdiver.com/carlbradley.htm
Dive Team: Lubo Valuch, Jitka Hanakova
Carl D. Bradley is the second-largest shipwreck in the Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzgerald was 729' in length. The wreck is intact and sits deep with the pilot house being the shallowest point at 310'. It broke in two parts in a violent storm on November 18, 1958.
The weather in upper Lake Michigan was reasonable on Thursday, August 2nd. The winds were not blowing that hard but the south direction created 1 to 3 ft waves. Luckily there were moorings on the stern and the bow of Carl D. Bradley, which made the dives possible.
First day Lubo and I (Jitka) dove the stern, where we arrived after a fairly long boat ride. We chose to dive 11/65 in our backgas and 21/35%, 50%, and 100% for deco bottles and 15 minute bottom time. On the way down we noticed a lot of zebra or quagga muscles attached to the line though they were more scattered toward the bottom. After 4 to 5 minutes we arrived at the deck of the stern at about 305ft. We continued down toward the propeller until we hit 350ft. It was very dark and quiet down there and I could hear my regulators distinctly. Despite the darkness the visibility was great reaching as far as my 24W light could reach. The propeller was huge. At that depth I noticed the bottom clearly and it didn’t look any different than any other part of the lake bottom. Looking up I felt quite miniscule and the deck 50ft above me seemed very very far away at that moment. It seemed to take forever to get back up to the deck portion. I know I wasn’t narked but my brain was overwhelmed due to the depth and the size of the wreck. It is a unique experience to be down there. Lubo and I swam around the wreck exploring parts of the stern such as the smoke stack, davits for the life boats, wheel, etc. At 15 minutes bottom time we backtracked our steps to the up-line and rest of the dive and deco was pretty uneventful… and long.
Second day we dove the bow. The weather was about the same as the day before. We arrived at the bow mooring this time. We used the same gases as the day before though we planned to go no deeper than 320ft. Following the line down we didn’t notice as many muscles. The line was probably newer. Arriving at the bow of the Bradley I noticed that the whole bow was slightly tilted. The line was tied to the railing. We swam around the bow toward the top of the pilot house. We saw the Carl D. Bradley sign and inside of the pilot house the wheel and the binnacle. The bell was on top of the pilot house. There were all kinds of other things to observe as if lake down there had frozen them in time. After that we swam toward the self-unloading structure and saw different sets of stairs going down probably inside. We left going down there for another time. 15 minutes later we were heading up the line for a very long deco. The water on the bottom was the usual temperature about 39F. The thermocline could be noticed as low as 80ft and at 20ft was almost 70F. We stayed warm the entire time and had two awesome dives on the Carl D. Bradley.
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