I realize I barely update this blog anymore but I wanted to do a quick post about our dive this weekend. A few years back I started to brainstorm and research potential wreck dives that could be done from shore with the the use of DPVs.
The Goal: Be able to navigate safely to these wrecks without surfacing. Effectively treating the whole dive as if it were an overhead environment, like one would do in a cave. Obviously, one could surface in a real emergency, but during the summer months, there is quite a bit of boat traffic in these areas so that should really be the last option.
We ended up connecting three wrecks from downtown Burlington, Vermont in Lake Chaplain. The General Butler, the OJ Walker and the Horse Ferry. All three are recreational depths and can be done safely from shore with proper gas planning and using DPVs with sufficient batter capacity. I believe we were likely the first people to do the Horse Ferry and OJ Walker from shore however given the General Butler’s close proximity to the breakwater and findng the remants of an old guideline I believe others have been shore diving the General Butler for quite some time. My other buddy John and I also connected 2 additional wrecks on the New York side of the lake but I will save that for another blog post.
Anyway these are really fun dives to do in the fall when the ocean is blown out. The lake is very warm this time of year and fall in Vermont is always fun. If you’re interested in doing any of these dives I would probably start with the General Butler first. It’s closer to shore, much shallower and entry is much easier. Unfortunately the entry point for the OJ Walker and Horse Ferry require climbing down some rocks or getting permission to enter from one of the docks in the area. My understanding was the city of Burlington was supposed to provide better water access along the shoreline there but that has not happened as of yet.
Ice Diving on the wreck of U.S. La Vallee
A few years ago in the winter of 2019 we were lucky enough to be able to drive out to the wreck of the La Vallee when Shelburne Bay completely froze over. We completed what I jokingly called our “extreme ice” dive when we were simply able to drive out to the wreck, cut a hole in the ice and go diving. This was the first time we dove the La Vallee as a “shore dive.”
https://youtu.be/0s9I8TFHg7M
Nevertheless it had got me thinking, could we do this dive with DPVs? The wreck itself is relatively close to shore in Shelburne Bay. The answer is yes with some strong caveats. 
There just so happens to be another water intake pipe that we could follow 60% of the way there without having to worry about our initial navigation. I had actually started thinking about doing this dive as a potential shore dive in 2020-2021 but other dive priorities took over. I’m happy to report that Marc-Andre and I closed the loop on this dive yesterday and were sucessfully able to navigate to the wreck from shore.
What else do I want to say? You will obviously need a DPV and sufficient gas reserves. I’m not going to “mansplain” this to you but this is not a single tank dive.
You will accumulate some deco. How much is mostly dependant of how much time you want to spend on the wreck and/or searching for the wreck. I ended up with an ~11 minute deco obligaton using 21/35 dil on CCR just to give you a number. Not a huge number but we had the advantage of being on CCR and most of that deco cleared on the scooter ride back to shore. If we had hit the wreck on the first attempt then I’m pretty sure my deco obligation would have been even smaller and non consequential. My point is we are not taking hours of deco.
We did this dive on CCR to eliminate any gas or time contraints while searching for the wreck but it could very much be done on open circuit provided you do not miss the wreck. I would also very much consider this an overhead environment given the boat traffic in the area. DO NOT SURFACE without a DSMB or dive flag.
Entry Point
The entry is a bit of a walk from Red Rocks Park since the main parking lot is closed after labor day. The intake pipe starting from the pump house is a much larger diameter than the ones from downtown Burlington and is much easier to follow. The PWI (Potable Water Intake) is much larger. Lots more structure and cribbing. Unlike the water intake pipe in downtown Burlington I found this structure much more interesting. If you do attempt to dive from Red Rocks Park bring a cart or two-wheeler to carry gear.
There was also a surprisingly mild to medium current at depth that pushed us slightly offcourse. It was the most current I’ve ever had on that wreck. The current was never a factor on the other 3 wrecks from downtown Burlington but it was a factor here.
Luckily with Marc’s superb navigation skills we were able to hit the wreck after re-calculating our course but the bottom is very much a featureless no man’s land with heavy thick silt. There is literally nothing you can use as a reference point until you get to the wreck. As many of you probably know, Lake Champlain is also usually pitch black below ~80-90ft. That was definitely the case on this dive. While we had ambient light on most of the intake pipe, the end of the water intake pipe and the wreck itself were pitch black with approximately 10-12ft of visibility. 
Unfortunately I did not take a camera on this dive because we were trying to focus on locating the wreck. My buddy Gary and his wife Ellen surprised us with his ROV at depth. He was in the area with his boat and met us at the dive site.
Marc and I were surprised to see his blinding ROV lights when we hit the end of the intake pipe. It was also very nice to see on the wreck. Thankfully on our second underwater navigation attempt we ran directly into the wreck. This accomplished our ultimate goal of locating the wreck without having to surface.
Next time I do this dive I will likely tow a dive flag with a GPS to collect some data and track lines like we did for the General Butler, OJ Walker and Horse Ferry DPV dives.
To give you some dive metrics. It was approximately ~15-20 minutes (including locating the intake pipe) to scooter to the end of the intake pipe with speed/gear ~6 on a Suex XJ and Seacraft Future for most of the way out. Scootering to the wreck from end of the intake pipe should take approximately 8-10 minutes, provided you hit the wreck. We actually spent a fair bit of time at depth because the current pushed us off course and we actually missed the wreck on our first attempt so our timing for this portion of the dive is not very accurate.
One other thing to note: The charted location of the end of the intake pipe is not accurate on the nautical chart. While I do have the GPS coordinates of the intake pipe I did not want to make that public as they are not my coordinates to give out. The compass heading and distance on the map posted above are very accurate. The wreck is approximately ~1165ft from the end of the water intake at a 295 degrees true (or 309 degrees magnetic) with a -14 degree west declination.
To be clear there is currently no line running to the wreck. I had originally planned to install one but decided against it for now. To accomplish this goal I would neeed much longer silt stakes. The bottom silt is very fine and deep in this area making running a line over ~1100ft a bit more difficult than initially planned.
I’d still like to run a line on a future dive so we can revisit the wreck on subsequent dives, but that’ll have to wait for another time. Overall, I’d consider this mission a success.
More information about the U.S. La Vallee wreck can be found here: https://www.lcmm.org/archaeology/vermont-underwater-historic-preserves/tugboat-u-s-la-vallee/
Stay tuned for the new update! Although that might be a year away 🙂
