First Dives Carl D. Bradley Stern

[john j]

I'm happy and fortunate to be able to report that John Scoles and I, with the help of Captain Greg Such of Shipwreck Adventures () successfully reached the stern of the Carl D. Bradley in northern Lake Michigan on Friday July 23.

This wreck lies in 360 feet of water and is the second largest shipwreck in all of the great lakes. Only the Edmund Fitzgerald is larger. More than 30 of her crew died here and I wish to express my sorrow again to the families of this tragic sinking.

We made 3 dives with a grand total bottom time of 70 minutes. Two dives were on the stern and one dive on the bow. We used Inspiration closed circuit rebreathers for these dives.

About 30 minutes of raw video was recorded and will be edited soon. I'll also post some still images as soon as I can.

This expedition marks the climax of more than 2 years of preparation, training, and about 30 practice dives at Wazee to 320+ feet. It would not have been possible without the support of Captain Greg Such and a partner like John Scoles.

[igotoofar]

Wow, it sounds like you had a great weekend. When are you going to have the public viewing of the video? ;D

You do realize you need to give us more of a write up than this.

[LKunze]

Congrats John. I heard about your dives on another forum a couple days ago. Looking forward to seeing your photos.

[Freedive WI]

Great job John!

I talked to Greg this morning and he was HIGHLY impressed with how squared away all of you were- which says a lot in my book since he sits pretty solidly in the OC/DIR camp.

I understand that you had some very solid, and well thought out, bailout plans and would enjoy hearing more about these when you have the time to post.

I also understand that you had some nice long dives with good vis and shot lots of video. I am really looking forward to seeing some of that.

What's the next challenge????

Jon

[Mark Y]

Wow! :o Congratulations John & John!!

I'll second the request for more dive details - and I wonder, what is your next quest??? The Fitz??? ;D

[john j]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. John Scoles deserves more credit than I. He operated the video camera and lights, not a trivial task at 300+ feet while flying a rebreather. All I did was swim around, point things out for him and shout in excitement at all the cool stuff I saw. He is one awesome diver and one heck of a guy. Greg did a great job with the boat, and I was really impressed with his concern for our safety. He was doing everything possible to help us and monitor our status during decompression. Without his support, we would have had no chance of doing this dive.

Next, we want to go back to the Bradley for more dives and video. There is so much to see. We are just barely started.

We're working on editing the video and I should be able to get some pictures posted pretty soon too, and I can talk more about the details of the dive and how we did it.

[john j]

He are some photos of the Carl D. Bradley expedition. All photos I'm posting here are copyright John Scoles and/or Inland Sea Corporation and may not be reproduced or used without permission. Please respect our copyrights and the law.


This first photo shows us before a dive on the Bradley, attaching stage bottles and getting ready. As you can see, we had nice weather and clam seas.

[john j]

Photo of gyro repeater on bow, approx 300 feet.

[john j]

Searchlight on top of bow pilot house. Depth at top of pilot house approx 290 feet.

[john j]

Name plate on pilot house roof. The circular object inside the window second from the right is the CRT screen for the radar unit. There was a lot of fantastic stuff in the pilothouse.