Wreck Diving
The Vienna’s wreck lies in 120 to 148 feet (37 to 45 m) of water at 46°44.46′N 84°57.91′W / 46.74100°N 84.96517°W / 46.74100; -84.96517. The Vienna’s wreck is one of the more accessible wreck dives in the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve because she is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from shore. She is known as a “blow-off” wreck dive because she closer to shore and extended-range divers go to this wreck during high winds and rough seas or when they have limited time. Her wreck is moored to protect her remains and enhance the safety of divers. However, the greater accessibility of the Vienna’s wreck belies her ability to ensnare even technically skilled, experienced scuba divers. The 4 diving fatalities on her wreck are the most of all the wrecks in the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve. Her remains are intact and upright and divers especially enjoy exploring her intact bow cabins. In 1994, 102 years after the Vienna sank, an experienced male diver who was a member of the Chippewa County Sheriff's Department died while diving her wreck. In 1995, an experienced male diver died of massive emboli after deeply penetrating the wreck, likely running out of air, and attempting an uncontrolled ascent without staged decompression. In 1996, an inexperienced female diver’s body was recovered from the wreck of the Vienna in 147 feet (45 m) feet of water when her companion diver who was her fiancé was unable to rescue her. A fourth diving fatality occurred at the wreck of the Vienna in 1998 but details of the accident are not available.
Read more about this topic: SS Vienna (1873)
Famous quotes containing the words wreck and/or diving:
“The old man had heard that there was a wreck and knew most of the particulars, but he said that he had not been up there since it happened. It was the wrecked weed that concerned him most ... and those bodies were to him but other weeds which the tide cast up, but which were of no use to him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)