the Ely, the long way

I first “dove” the Samuel P. Ely about thirty years ago.

I use the word dove generously.

A friend ran us out on his boat, tied off to the mooring, with no idea a thousand-foot ore boat had just churned through. It had turned the bottom over and left the harbor in a fog ~ visibility down to a few feet. We jumped in anyway, ran a hand along the hull, saw next to nothing, and surfaced a few minutes later. On Monday, I finally went back. No boat this time ~ just me, Heather, and two scooters.

The Ely was lost in 1896 after breaking free from the tug Hesper during a Lake Superior gale. Her crew clung to the rigging all night before all ten were rescued the next morning. She’s still resting off the breakwall at the entrance to Two Harbors, remarkably intact.

She’s only about fifty yards from shore.

Unfortunately, it’s the wrong shore.

Without a boat, the only way in is to cross roughly half a mile from the opposite side of the harbor ~ directly through the shipping lane. Crossing that on scooters sounded like one of those ideas that gets worse the longer you think about it.

So we thought about it. A lot.

We checked the ore boat schedule. Checked it again. Called a boat captain buddy. Towed a bright yellow diver-below float, flew a dive flag, crossed on the surface to keep eyes on the channel, and waited for a quiet morning.

Everything went exactly to plan.

Still felt like we were getting away with something.