The navigation maps are pretty far off- plus, they don't care about wrecks below 50' since they don't interfere with shipping.
There are numerous books, and websites, out there on the subject. My father-in-law sells a book with lists of wrecks in it for our area, and has to update it every other year because of new discoveries. If you check on many of the tech diving forums they have lists of the wrecks as well. Take a look at Chris Kohl's book and you'll find maps, photos, GPS numbers, and chart boats to take you there.
I know that there are some shallow wrecks up by Chris that stick out of the water and are HUGE. We have a number of wrecks off of Milwaukee that start as shallow as 5' and go on from there. There are a number of them in the 40' and less category and we use them for doing open water training dives- so would be perfect for new freedivers as well.
Many of there wrecks in less than 40' can be dove from shore or off of a dive kayak. If there is enough interest I can get a boat for diving them- but I would want to get at least 6-8 freedivers as the boats I can get are a little on the large side.
We could set up training ropes and hit some depth if we go a little ways- 3 miles or so. So far I've only had one freediver at a time interested in the wrecks so I've just tagged along regular wreck charters- and most of these are in the 60'-120' range.
Sheboygan has a few nice wrecks that you need a boat to get to out in around 70'-90'. They also have some very nice wrecks in the 170' range- but so far I can only dive those with a tank on my back.:head
Door county has shallow wrecks. Munising, Michigan has shallow wrecks. the Apostle Islands have shallow wrecks- almost too shallow for anything but kayaking over. There's a ton of wrecks up in the Straights. Chicago is nothing but shallow wrecks. If divers are interested int he Two Rivers area, and any distance north or south of there, I ave a very good friend who runs a charter boat out that way and could take 6 of us at a time. I'd have to check into prices for us and what kind of depths/wrecks people would want to dive on.
My favorite place, so far, for freediving on wreck has to be Tobermorey Canada. The place is pretty incredible. Most of the wrecks ran aground and start in 20'-30 of water. They, then, sunk and their sterns lay in 80'-150' of water. That means you can pick your depth no matter what wreck your on. for scuba diving it also means you can start your deco half way up the wreck and have cool stuff to look at the whole time your in the water!:inlove
Here's a few quick shots from photos I happend to have on hand.
First, is the Volunteer. She burned to the water in the early 1920's and sits in less than 15'.
Second, is the Willy. She was named one of the top 20 wrecks in North America a few years ago in a dive magazine. She starts at 60' and goes to 93' with the lake bottm at around 70'. She's a great dive and a lot of fun on a scooter.
Next, is a wreck from Tobermory. She rests in 12' of water and you can see how far up she comes.
Last, is the Niagra. Neat wreck with a great story sunk in 25' of water off of Port Washington- halfway between Milwaukee and Sheboygn. the top comes up to about 15' and when i was a kid she still had her twin paddle wheels intact on her.
Jon
Jon
