pfeiffer@uwvax.UUCP (Phil Pfeiffer) (09/04/85)
*** SAVE NET.REC.SCUBA! REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR DIVE REVIEW *** Munising is on the south shore of Lake Superior, on Michigan's upper peninsula, an hour or so west of Sault Ste. Marie (this article's title is a regional paraphrase of Michigan's tourism slogan, "Say Yes to M!ch!gan"). The harbor has been set aside as an underwater preserve; several charter dive operations run daily trips during the summer. My wife and I thought that it was worth saying "yes" to Munising, at least once, based on the six dives we made there over Labor Day weekend. Superior, clearest and coldest of the Great Lakes, is a little warmer come the end of summer: Labor Day weekend the surface waters were about 60 degrees F, while temperatures at depth were in the 40's. You'll get cold (my wife, especially got cold), but you can make several dives in one day in a quarter-inch farmer john. Divers who have dry suits wear them. There are several wrecks in the harbor, and a few more down the coast in both directions. You need a calm day to get to one of the outer wrecks in the sort of small craft that the charter operators use; we signed up for an all-day trip to the Kiowa (about thirty miles down the coast) on Friday, but were weathered out by high seas. As far as the harbor wrecks go, the "grand banana of them all" (as our trip operator called it) is the Smith Moore, a 19th century three-masted schooner. The Smith Moore is largely intact. Her deck lies at 85', her keel at 110'. Lin and I made two dives on the deck and a third on the stern. I probably could have made another four, five dives on this boat without getting bored. Hard to do several hours' worth of sightseeing when your bottom time is limited by depth and cold water. Munising, once an important lake port thanks to the paper trade, is now just a small town: a main street, a bakery, a few small motels and (good) restaurants, and the marina. Hotels run in the mid-thirties. Another local attraction which perhaps attracts more people than the Alger Underwater Preserve is Pictured Rocks National Park, a forty-mile strip of land along Superior's southern shore, just west of Munising. Pictured Rocks has some large sand dunes, waterfalls, colored rock formations, and supposedly one of the most scenic backpacking trails in the United States. Before going back to Munising, I'd like to dive some other places in Lake Superior that I've heard about but never seen: Isle Royale, Apostle Islands, Whitefish Bay. However, Lin and I did think that it was certainly worth saying "yes" to Munising, at least once. Also, I should add that many of the divers whom we met in Munising over Labor Day had been there several times before: some people who lived as far away as St. Louis, Detroit, and Chicago made annual trips. -- Phil Pfeiffer "There's a legend handed down, from the Chippewa on down, of the big lake they call Gitchee-Gumee... "