On Monday, I was in Silver Bay for a dive on the wreck of the Hesper. The marina there is a marvel of modern planning, complete with a break wall you can actually drive down, which is perfect until you realize you then have to clamber over bluestone boulders the size of compact cars while burdened with more metal and plastic than a Soviet cosmonaut. The dive itself was a study in simplicity: follow the wall, find the wreck, take some pictures.Some folks are drawn to wrecks for the romance of history — the captain’s log, the lives lost, the stormy seas. Not me. To me, wrecks are just accidents made manifest: poor choices, bad weather, and regret resting on the bottom of the lake. I know people who turn up every year at the “Gales of November” in Duluth — honoring the Edmund Fitzgerald, listening to sea-stories and songs, swapping theories about what went wrong during that fateful November storm. I admire their devotion. I just don’t share it.

The real excitement came on the way out, when the lake, calm as glass an hour earlier, had acquired a breeze and some testy whitecaps. Climbing out is never graceful, but Heather had it especially hard. She weighs maybe 120 pounds; her rebreather, bailout bottles, and assorted gear weigh about the same. Imagine trying to hoist a second version of yourself up a three foot ledge onto slippery rocks with waves banging on your back. That’s what she was up against. After a few valiant but futile attempts, I ended up grabbing the handle of her rebreather and hauling like a dockworker unloading frozen cod. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.

Tuesday took me from wrecks to the Duluth aquarium, where I was supposed to be diving,  scrubbing Plexiglas and delighting schoolchildren. Instead, I found myself with a sudden and inexplicable wave of anxiety. Nothing was wrong—no gear failures, no lurking sharks—just a rising unease and quickened breathing. It was mildly disconcerting, mostly because this almost never happens when I’m diving alone. I suspect it has something to do with control. When I’m solo, I can ascend, descend, or spin in circles like a lamprey without worrying about anyone else. I decide what happens and when. In the aquarium, though, with another diver beside me and schoolchildren plastered against the glass expecting entertainment, it felt different—like my choices had been subtly shackled. I managed to distract myself by scrubbing upside down, which at least delighted the kids, but the odd tension lingered until the dive was over. Later that same day I dropped solo into Lake Superior’s murky, 40-degree water to work on some skills for an upcoming decompression course where visibility no more than ten feet, and felt as relaxed as if I were floating in a warm bath. Brains are mysterious contraptions.

By Thursday I was back in familiar territory at the Two Harbors break wall. There, amid basalt ledges and steep drop-offs, I met the week’s true star: a mottled sculpin. It has the awkward charm of something trying very hard to be cute but never quite pulling it off, which seems an unfair fate for a little fish toughing it out in the world’s coldest inland sea.  It has bulging eyes, an oversized head, fins that jut at odd angles, and an expression suggesting mild disappointment. Most of the time they disappear the instant you spot them, but this fellow lingered just long enough for me to fumble a photo, then took off like a star avoiding autographs.

Now fall is rolling in, leaves tipping toward yellow, evenings cooling, the air sharpened with that peculiar autumnal clarity. Normally I’d sulk at the thought of summer’s demise, but this year I find myself oddly looking forward to winter diving in Lake Superior. Hardly anyone does it, apart from the ceremonial New Year’s plunge—a dare more than a dive, where most people last twenty minutes before sprinting for hot chocolate. It may be dark, frigid, and wildly impractical, but diving Superior in winter is like opening a door to a private museum—one where the exhibits are only for you.