The second the divers drop below the surface of Lake Erie, there is nothing but green.
They descend 10, 15, 20 feet on their way to a piece of history. All divers can see is the thin, white rope they clutch as they go down, hand over hand.
“If you feel claustrophobic, concentrate on the rope. I promise it will take you there,” Mark Leemaster, the boat captain, had said before divers rolled backward off the vessel into the three-foot waves.
Suddenly, at 40 feet, the green seems to open up to reveal a broken wooden ship. The Phillip Minch sank here in 1904 after it caught fire on its way to Sandusky for a load of coal.
One hundred years ago, rescue crews from Marblehead, 12 miles to the west, rowed over this very spot looking for sailors caught on the fiery vessel. They didn't realize the crew had saved themselves and rowed to shore, probably passing the rescuers.
Today, boats carry divers here to explore Lake Erie's underwater history.
There are 1,700 known ships sunk in Lake Erie, and probably more that haven't been discovered. Sailors died in collisions, fires, and storms that seemed to come from nowhere. Ships were lost. Some still haven't been found.
“In the Caribbean, ships are sunk on purpose to make artificial reefs. Here, we're seeing what really happened. They look like they did 50 years ago, and 50 years from now they'll look the same,” said diver Stan Ziemkiewicz.
Five divers swim around the Minch's engine, which stood upright until 1996 when an ore boat struck it. They work their way across boards that made up the 275-foot vessel to the boiler, mindful of the sharp edges on some of the thousands of zebra mussels that cling to the wood.
For a century, the murky bottom of Lake Erie has been the final resting place for the Minch and other shipwrecks. They tell a tale of the region long ago, of a time ships carried limestone, ore, coal, and goods between lake ports.
“A lot can be learned about not only the wrecks, but about the economy of the time by what they were hauling,” said Chris Gillcrist, executive director of the Great Lakes Historical Society.
So far, the underwater history of Ohio's part of Lake Erie has been a well-kept secret. Now historians want everyone to know.
They have been working with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to create an underwater preserve to mark the wrecks, detail their stories, and attract tourists.
But people who live on Lake Erie islands, fearful of restrictions on their land and water rights, have fought the efforts. As a result, the state is rethinking the preserve. Shipwrecks are currently not marked because of a dispute over who would be liable for the buoys.
Divers in western Lake Erie contend with waves that can reach five feet with little wind. Algae hurts visibility in late summer, and a diver kicking the bottom can stir up sediment so badly it obscures the entire ship for the day.
Zebra mussels cleared the lake for divers, but they coat every ship. And it is not the Caribbean - at the Phillip Minch it was 52 degrees in late June.
But on a good day, the lake is like glass. Visibility reaches 30 feet and shallow water is ideal for beginners. The lake's fresh water preserves the ships so they'll be around for the next generation. Divers have access to a world where time stopped.
“I kind of feel like a treasure hunter. Even when there's no visibility, you feel along the ship and you find the propeller or a boiler or an engine,” said Randy Sharlow, an instructor with Aqua Hut in Toledo. “All these ships have stories.”
Art Vermette sits on the rail of the Vida-C, a red tugboat, and tells the tale of a terrible storm. It was Oct. 13, 1909.
The George Stone was working its way up the busy shipping channel north of Pelee Island when it struck a reef. The captain radioed for help and sounded the boat's whistle, but passing ships didn't stop.
The crew set out on a wooden lifeboat, but it was smashed in the storm. Seven men jumped into a metal boat, but that overturned and five men died. The captain made it to shore but died.
Back on the boat, a lamp was knocked over in the chaos, and the George Stone burned. Ten men left on that boat were rescued just in time.
“Ever since I was 20, a lifetime ago really, I wanted to get out and see what was out here,” said Mr. Vermette, who turns the tugboat into a dive operation on summer weekends. “I've been here ever since.” He said he has been on 42 Lake Erie shipwrecks, then confides he knows of a few more but is keeping them to himself.
“I know the other guys do the same thing,” he said.
Barb Diefenbaker, an instructor with Rec Diving in Royal Oak, Mich., leads students to see the George Stone where it lies. She is teaching them how to navigate using a compass, and it's a good day to learn: At best, visibility is less than 10 feet. Lake Erie is not cooperating.
Some divers reach an underwater plaque honoring the men who died there, and a couple see the vessel's giant propellers. The rest feel their way along the wreck and then surface to the boat. From there it's on to the Specular, a ship that sank in 1900, named for the type of ore she carried.
“A lot of these ships are broken up; sometimes there isn't a lot to see. But it's still great to get out here. It's diving. And it's history,” said diver Mike Herzog.
Ships traveled Lake Erie every day in the 1800s and early 1900s. The shallow depth - 40 feet or less on the lake's west side - was detrimental because it took only a little wind to whip up giant, successive waves that would batter the vessels. It was widely known as the most treacherous of the Great Lakes.
“When a storm comes up, it comes up strong and fast and it runs the length of the lake,” said Michael Wachter, who, along with his wife, has written books documenting Lake Erie wrecks. “Those boats had no warning.”
A lot of the shipwrecks on the Canadian side of the lake are in government-created provincial parks, Mr. Wachter said. They're marked with buoys that allow boaters to find the wrecks and anchor into the concrete on the buoys instead of dropping anchors into the wrecks, which can slowly tear them apart.
“The Canadians are way ahead of us on the preservation effort,” Mr. Gillcrist said.
The other Great Lakes states, including Michigan, have underwater preserves and mark the wrecks. Ohio is behind on those efforts, historians said. Now the state's trying to catch up.
The Lake Erie Research Center, founded three years ago in Vermilion, Ohio, has a database of shipwrecks. Researchers talk to divers and civic groups about the ships' histories and provide photos and stories to divers about the wrecks they see.
The center is working to educate divers about the 1991 state law that prohibits taking anything from shipwrecks - a law the Ohio Department of Natural Resources finds impossible to enforce.
“The DNR doesn't have shipwreck police,” Mr. Gillcrist said.
The state announced in 2000 it was going to create Ohio's first underwater preserve around Kelleys Island. The plan was to mark the shipwrecks, document their stories, and make it easier for divers to enjoy them.
Three shipwrecks were promoted first: The F.H. Prince, the Hanna, and the Adventure, a wreck just off Kelleys Island in only eight feet of water. All that's left of the Adventure are a few broken boards, but the large propeller was found on a scrap pile and re-sunk there in 1998.
But Kelleys Island residents fought the preserve.
They feared the ODNR would restrict boating, fishing, swimming, or land rights, something state officials promised wouldn't happen.
The state said the preserve would attract more tourists. Island leaders said they feared just that and said they wouldn't be able to accommodate them.
“It's a bad thing if we're not ready,” Kelleys Island mayor Rob Quinn said. “Ask any islander.”
The ODNR moved the proposed preserve west of Kelleys Island, but Mr. Quinn said residents are still concerned. The Put-in-Bay village council on South Bass Island sent the state a letter opposing the preserve for the same reasons.
Brenda Culler-Gautschi, spokeswoman for the ODNR's office of coastal management, said the office received 140 responses to the preserve, many of them supporting it, including the Kelleys Island Chamber of Commerce. The office is evaluating whether to proceed.
“I believe the underwater preserve was supposed to be something very positive for the Lake Erie region and the communities around Lake Erie to attract people to the area,” she said. The idea was to promote “history of shipping on the Great Lakes and to point out that it is a wonderful place to dive.”
The F.H. Prince sits in only 18 feet of water right off Kelleys Island; on a clear day snorkelers can see the ship from the surface. The wreck is surprisingly intact, and its boiler rises to six feet from the surface.
That's a problem on this day. As divers hang on to the boiler, admiring the vessel, a motorboat roars overhead despite the honks and angry yells from the dive boat captain.
The dive boat bears a red “diver down” flag with a white diagonal stripe, meaning there are people in the water. Unfortunately, Mr. Leemaster said, too many boaters don't know what it means.
“That's dangerous for divers,” he said.
Historians and divers have been asking the state to mark its wrecks for safety and to attract divers. Without markers, boaters use global positioning system coordinates and hope for the best when they anchor.
Ms. Gautschi said an advisory council wanted to set up mooring buoys, but the effort hit a snag.
“The problem is really a technical problem, not being able to hold someone liable,” she said. The U.S. Coast Guard has to sign off on the buoys, but a liability clause in their paperwork conflicts with that of the DNR.
She said the state is trying to work with nonprofit groups who could take responsibility for the markers but admitted there are more pressing issues for the coastal management office, which is only a year old.
“It's not that we don't want it to happen. We want to find a way to work it out,” she said.
Mr. Gillcrist of the Great Lakes Historical Society said it's important for Ohio to preserve the history of Ohio shipwrecks and to tell the rest of the world about them.
“It's all about education,” he said. “It's a way to get divers to think this isn't just stuff under water. They're underwater archaeological sites. People need to learn that ultimately, as a citizen of Ohio, it's your property.”
First Published July 27, 2003, 11:09 a.m.
