Niflheim
The shadow realm, where silence drifts below.
Smallmouth Bass
Lake Ore-Be-Gone may sound like a punchline, but it’s the sort of accidental miracle that happens when humans quit digging holes and let nature have a turn. Now, smallmouth bass drift through the stillness, utterly unaware that their tranquil home once echoed with the racket of progress—a reminder that nature always wins, just very politely.
Madeira
A beam of light, a century-old hatch, and more depth than I’d planned to find myself in. My first dive after an air diluent course—apparently education really does take you places.
Lake Trout
Built for the abyss, this trout normally inhabits depths where no light penetrates. Only spawning brings them shallow in autumn—a rare glimpse of a fish that lives its life in complete and utter darkness, far below where divers can follow.
Sturgeon
Down in the dim light, a Lake Superior sturgeon drifted past—centuries in its bones, zero urgency in its day. Twenty-five years to mature, a hundred to die. Proof that time moves differently underwater.
Northern Pike
In the shimmering mine-lake under Crosby’s afternoon sun I found myself stalking a pike among the iron-pit ruins. Proof that even reclaimed industrial scars can glitter in the right light.
Tioga wall
At Tioga Pit the walls drop away like a forgotten canyon. Heather’s light disappears into the blue and I’m reminded how small a diver looks in a place that used to swallow machines whole.
Madeira
There’s Heather, poised beside the bow of the Madeira — a ghost-ship from 1905 that once hauled ore and lumber, and now lies broken and majestic under the chilly blue of Lake Superior. Most divers dream of this bucket-list site; for me, it’s just another Monday morning underwater, though the locked gate and private parking lend it the faint air of a secret society devoted to rust and cold water.
Madeira
Heather drifts through the ribs of the Madeira, a steel skeleton claimed by the 1905 gale that also gave us Split Rock Lighthouse — where tragedy did what bureaucracy never could: built a beacon.
Slush Season
At 33°F, Lake Superior was part water, part slush, and entirely mesmerizing. Ice crystals danced in the light, Heather’s regulator froze and we both laughed—because in this lake, cold is just part of the charm.
King Angelfish
The king angelfish of Isla del Caño are outrageously dressed for royalty—blue, gold, and utterly unbothered by human awe. Grace floated among them with the serene confidence of someone who’s spent months roaming Central America, while I followed, quietly astonished that such adventures can be both underwater and father-daughter.
Smallmouth Bass
The ghost of a mining era frames a lone bass in the emerald depths: once a rail-speeder hauling men and iron, now a sunken window to underwater life.