CONTINUOUSWAVE

I have had the notion of a day trip out to the wreck site of the Edmund Fitzgerald on my agenda for years, but I never seem to get around to it. I want to pencil-in this for 2022--again.

The simplest approach would be to trailer to the launching ramp at the north end of Whitefish Bay. From there the distance to the wreck should be less than 20-miles. Of course, upon returning to that ramp there are no facilities there, other than a vault toilet, as I recall.

It would be very interesting to see if the wreck could be found with SONAR. To see an echo off the two sections of the hull at 500-feet down would be most intriguing, and would confirm that you were actually on the site.

Here is a prior discussion on this topic:

Side-Scan Sonar Image of Edmund Fitzgerald
https://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/001841.html

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like the Canadian statute protecting the site of the Edmund Fitzgerald wreck has been amended since we discussed it back in 2008. The Canadian Heritage Act previously prohibited operating any submersible vehicle or towed survey equipment within 500 meters of the wreck, but has since been amended to prohibit the operation of "any type of equipment, machine, device or thing capable of being used to conduct a survey, whether towed or not, including a side scan sonar or a camera." See Canadian Heritage Act, Sec. 48 https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90o18#BK82. I believe a normal non-side scan sonar would come within the meaning of a thing capable of being used to conduct a survey.

Kevin’s interpretation would suggest that vessels transiting near the wreck would be required to shut of their regular SONAR. It is a bit of a Catch-22: until I saw a SONAR echo that looked like it was from the wreck, how would I know when to shut off my SONAR?