Vacation, the next day.

Aaron and I went out scuba diving on Lake Huron. Just as we did last year when we dove the Wexford, we went out with Captain Gary Venet, owner of RecTec Charters, aboard his vessel, the Sylvia Anne.
For me, this was the acid test for my new diving foot prosthetic, the Activankle, made by Rampro.

The foot had already tried to kill me once by coming apart while I was swimming against a current in the Shenandoah River. After some repairs and modifications, it performed admirably well in the river, surviving my best attempts at inducing a malfunction. I was satisfied and confident enough to take it out in the big water.

And at 90 feet below the surface of Lake Huron, amidst the wreckage of the steamer North Star, it tried to kill me again. As I kicked to propel myself along the wreck, the foot and fin that was attached to it suddenly twisted and rotated just like it's literature says that it won't. So I wound up ninety feet underwater trying to troubleshoot this foot and get it to work right. With it twisting freely with every kick, not only was I unable to move in any deliberate direction, but it was also exerting a considerable amount of force on my leg up around the knee so that every kick felt like a vice-grip was locking onto my leg and wrenching it. Add to this the poor visibility on the wreck which limited communication between me and Aaron even more than his interesting hand-signals did (WTF, dude?) and it quickly became a mess. We finally surfaced well away from the upline and dive boat because there was no way that I could get to it, and I had to get reeled in like a big, angry fish. EPIC FAIL, Rampro. If I could have detached this damned foot down on the wreck, it's still be there now. As it is, you'll be getting it back shortly, along with a few choice comments from me to the gibbons and baboons that you've apparently hired to design and assemble these ankles.

The only upside was that Lisa on the boat crew had to shuck down to her swimsuit and come in the water to help me. Silver linings...

The second dive onto the steamer Regina went much better. I ditched the leg and went back to a one-finned dive and it turned out just fine.

Here I am. Handsome fellow, eh?
The Regina was a 300 foot steel freighter that was lost with all hands during the great storm of 1913, a massive storm which took 12 ships to the bottom of the Great Lakes and killed over 250 people. The Regina was lost to history until 1986, when it was discovered upside down but otherwise largely intact on the bottom of Lake Huron.





Here's me again, swimming around the Regina's rudder chain at 70 feet. One of the great mysteries surrounding this wreck came from the fact that bodies of the crew of another ship lost with all hands, the Charles S Price, were found on shore wearing lifejackets from the Regina. For many years it was believed that the two ships must have come together in the storm and either collided, or else the Regina had attempted to aid the crew of the Price by throwing them lifejackets. As there were no survivors from either vessel, it remained a mystery until finally an old man on his deathbed gave away a long-held community secret: When the bodies of the dead sailors had washed ashore, they were stripped of anything valuable by the locals, and then buried. However when it became known that the authorities were diligently searching for the bodies, they were hurriedly dug up and dressed again and presented as having been just found. In their haste to get the bodies dressed again, some of the townsfolk put the wrong lifejacket on at least one body.


And here's me between the blades of the Regina's propeller.
When this wreck was found, much of it's cargo of whiskey was still salvageable. In fact the divers who found it kept the discovery a secret for a few years to enable them to recover some of the cargo and attempt to lay an exclusive claim to it. However all they really managed to do was collapse part of the hull via their rather ham-fisted recovery methods. This is why laws exist to protect wrecks.




And here's Aaron, showing how two-footed people can float.


This was a good dive, despite relatively poor visibility and a fair current across the wreck. Next time I'll be back with better tanks and more air, and we'll see what's inside the hull.

And this is what I look like, swimming with one fin. I make it look easy. I'm that good.