On this day May 27, 1933, the GEORGE M. COX was bound from Duluth to Isle Royale on its maiden trip for its new owners and under its new name. The weather was fair and rather calm. The COX was going at full speed. A good time was being had by her 120 passengers until the COX came to a sudden stop which knocked those on board off their feet. The COX was almost standing on end. She had struck the Rock of Ages Shoal.
Photo at top of page: GEORGE M. COX in the Chicago River
The GEORGE M. COX on the Rock of Ages
Although the COX was surrounded by deep water those on board seemed to be in no danger and were soon rescued. Arrangements were made by the owners for her release but a severe storm moved in before operations could start. When the storm was gone so was the COX. She had slid off the rock and disappeared into the deep water.
Launched as the PURITAN at Toledo’s Craig Ship Building yard in 1901, she was a steel excursion boat that could carry 2,000 passengers and had a record speed of 22 miles an hour. She measured 260 feet in length and 40 in beam. She ran for the Holland & Chicago Transportation Co., Graham and Morton, and Michigan Transportation Co. In 1930 she went into receivership and was taken over by the Isle Royale Line in March of 1933 and renamed GEORGE M. COX. She was lost on her first trip.
Our Shipwreck Ambassador Cal Kothrade recalls below his dive on the COX and his adventure in Lake Superior.
The Team. Photo courtesy of Cal Kothrade
It was late in the summer of 2012, six of my best dive buddies and I, with our trucks overflowing of dive gear, had just arrived in Grand Portage, Minn., after a ten hour drive from our homes in Milwaukee, Wis. Grand Portage is in the far northeast corner of Minnesota, a stone’s throw from the Canadian border. We had come seeking a week’s worth of wreck diving adventure with the live-aboard vessel LAKE SUPERIOR DIVER and her captain/owner Ryan Staley.
This was the fourth year of my annual invitational dive trip and we had been collectively wanting to experience the historic shipwrecks around Isle Royale, Mich., for some time now. Why had we driven to Minnesota to dive Michigan wrecks you ask? The island is a national park and belongs to the state of Michigan. It is situated in the northwest corner of Lake Superior, only twenty miles from the Minnesota and Canadian border, which is also where the dive boat operates from.
I was excited to finally be loading my gear aboard the boat. I had never dove Lake Superior before and this was to be my first live-aboard as well. The previous three invitational trips to southern California, British Columbia, Canada, and Hatteras, North Carolina may have been more exotic in location, but the shipwrecks we were about to dive in Superior’s ice-water mansion were second to none. And, the GEORGE M. COX was my introduction to quagga-free Great Lakes diving.
Preparing. Photo courtesy of Cal Kothrade
Lake Superior is the only lake not yet inundated with the invasive mussel that began covering literally everything under the water in the Lakes since it was first flushed out of an eastern European cargo ship’s ballast tanks back in the early eighties. It decided it liked it here, in a similar environment to its native home waters, and thus began to flourish. But the simple lack of trillions of tiny Quagga mussels (a close cousin to the original Zebra mussel), makes the diving in Lake Superior so much more rewarding…when you look at the artifacts on the wreck sites, you can easily discern what you are viewing, be it a wrench, a valve, a coffee cup or whatever. That’s hard to do in the other Lakes when these items are covered in a two inch thick blanket of the encrusting invaders. The details of the construction of the wooden ships and the ornate scrollwork and beautiful rusticles on an iron engine can readily be enjoyed too.
Diving In. Photo courtesy of Cal Kothrade
The down side is a lesser average visibility in Superior than say Michigan or Huron. The mussels in those lakes have cleaned the water up considerably over the decades, acting as a giant slow but steady filter. It permits photographers like me to realize grand wide angle shots of the large ships, though they are covered in blankets of bi-valves.
Cooling Off. Photo courtesy of Cal Kothrade
Of the tens of divable wrecks around the forty mile long island, the COX is on the lower end of the ‘spectacular spectrum’, but a good shallow primer to get one’s feet wet, as it were. Unless you are in a drysuit, then hopefully you have dry feet or something has gone terribly wrong. And you will be glad you are wearing your drysuit instead of a wetsuit in Superior, even in late August, because Gitchee-Gumee stays COLD. I can testify to this fact because one bright, warm sunny day between dives on a deep freighter (EMPEROR), we went swimming off the back of the boat. I don’t recall staying in too long, let’s just leave it at that.
Boiler. Photo courtesy of Cal Kothrade
Deck Hatch. Photo courtesy of Cal Kothrade
The COX has plenty of plate steel, a boiler, and large prop shaft and prop to view, and is a fun dive. The prop is missing quite a bit of her blades, and one blade all together. This is the quite expected result of running into a rock reef. Rock trumps boat every time. Our group found this out the hard way a couple hours later that same first day of Royale diving. Our very own boat ran aground on a rock slope when a squall blew us in the wrong direction at a very critical moment while leaving a mooring. We snapped the linkage connecting our two rudders, leaving us crippled until we could perform some very creative repairs. But I digress, as this is a tale for another time.
Propeller. Photo courtesy of Cal Kothrade
Propeller Shaft. Photo courtesy of Cal Kothrade
The COX certainly is not in my list of top wreck dives, but it will always be my first Superior wreck dive!
Images were created with a Canon T1-I Rebel DSLR mated to a Canon 10-22mm super-wide rectilinear lens, in an Ikelite housing using natural light and Ikelite DS-161 Movie strobes X2. Post Post production was performed in Adobe Lightroom.
PHOTOS: Above water, or mostly above water photos credit is the Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.
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Suzette Lopez
Cal Kothrade is a Trustee and the Shipwreck Ambassador of the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society, a diver, a photographer and an artist. His work can be viewed at www.calsworld.net
