(Proposed) West Michigan Underwater Preserve

[MUPC]

Diving on shipwrecks

Not far from the Hackley and Hume historic sites and the Muskegon County Museum downtown are structures waiting to provide visitors a look at a different time in our history.

Yet few people realize the existence of these structures, some more than 100 years old and hundreds of feet long, unseen by the naked eye.

They are shipwrecks that reside at the bottom of Lake Michigan off the West Michigan coastline -- underwater historical exhibits telling tales of tragedy, history and, in some cases, survival.

These local wrecks from Grand Haven to Pentwater cover a wide range of sizes, shapes and shipping eras. They are found in various depths, from just off the shoreline in 15 feet of water to hundreds of feet below the surface where only the most advanced divers are able to descend.

Despite their differences, the wrecks provide a time capsule of Great Lakes shipping and their crews.

An abundance of wrecks

There have been about 8,000 Great Lakes wrecks, according to researchers, and the cold, fresh water keeps them better preserved than those found in oceans.

Though Lake Michigan is considered the most dangerous of the Great Lakes, the West Michigan area has a wreck density that is slightly less than other parts of the Big Lake and is not considered a top dive destination, said shipwreck historian and researcher Brendon Baillod.

Baillod is also an author who is working on a book about Oceana County's shipwrecks, "Ghosts of the Oceana Coast." Still, there are plenty of "notable" wrecks off the coast from Pentwater to Grand Haven, Baillod said.

Among the most interesting wrecks and divable points along the West Michigan shoreline are:

• The Armistice Day wrecks off Pentwater.
• The State of Michigan off the White Lake Channel.
• The Ironsides off Grand Haven.
• The Brighty off the Oceana County coast.
• The Neptune near the Little Sable Point.

The area isn't home to widely famous wrecks such as the Edmund Fitzgerald or the Carl D. Bradley, the two largest ships to sink on the Great Lakes that took the lives of many sailors. Area wrecks mainly came from the local traffic of lumber schooners or small passenger steamers and vessels in transit from Milwaukee or Chicago to the Straits of Mackinac, Baillod said.

"Storms would tend to blow vessels ashore on your stretch of beach," Baillod said.