Have Dive Gear Will Travel

I make my living working backstage as a stagehand in musical theatre. Touring across the country allows me to dive in some fascinating places that are not always front-page news in the dive magazines. I’ve begun sidemount diving and having a Nomad has allowed me the luxury of not having to take my tanks on tour. I can easily rent single tanks from local dive shops and set them up as I need them.

I began my current job as Flyman for the National Tour of the Broadway production of Mary Poppins the Musical shortly after completing the Cow Springs Restoration Project in January, 2009. Our first stop was six months in my home city of Chicago. Here I get to dive the Lake Michigan wrecks of both Chicago and Milwaukee. Being at home also allowed me to dive backmount, too. I also did survey work with the Underwater Archeological Society of Chicago (UASC), an organization where I have be acting as dive coordinator. As a group we did dives on both the Car Ferry Milwaukee out of Milwaukee harbor and The Rotarian 9 miles off the north side of Chicago.

Zoom+ Wheelhouse forward, CF Milwaukee Michael Angelo Gagliardi

Dive Report the Car Ferry Milwaukee
The Car Ferry Milwaukee carried railroad box cars across Lake Michigan for many years before it went down and was lost in a storm in 1929. Many thought it went down in the middle of the lake and some books even listed it as a flying Dutchman/ghost ship until local divers found it just outside Milwaukee harbor in the 1970’s. The ship lays from 90’ to 120’ mostly intact with the wheel house blown off to the port side. I booked this dive with Jerry Guyer captain of The Lender dive charter. Jerry’s been running divers out to the Milwaukee and the Prins Wilhem for decades. I got my gas fill with Scuba Systems in Skokie IL. I chose to back mount this dive and used a NiTek Duo computer for deco.

On Monday May 11 UASC members gallantly broke thru the "The CHEDDAR CURTAIN" and did two dives on the Car Ferry Milwaukee. Capt Jerry Guyer took great care of us and we had a great couple of dives.

The Dive team consisted of:
Michael Angelo Gagliardi
Jeff Rouse
Cheryl Wickstrom
Bill Messner

Visibility - 70 feet +/_ 10
Temp. - 42 degrees

The first dive was on the bow. Cheryl and Bill swam along the length of the ship, while Jeff and Howard swam to the wheelhouse which is about 100 feet off port. I first hung at the line and shot several bow shots in order to create a composite shot to do a drawing from. Having completed this I followed Jeff and Howard to the wheelhouse where the great visibility offered me an opportunity to shot a full composite of the broken off wheelhouse. I had taped over the flash on my camera and shot in ambient light with no strobe. I completed composite shots of the wheelhouse from front and back and from the inside looking out. I wore thinner then usual gloves and this was a mistake. With my fingers cold I headed back to the bow line at 30 minutes. Dive time was 38 minutes with a max depth of 115 feet. I dove double steel 95 and used an alum 80 as a stage bottle, all filled with nitrox 28 %. I used only the stage bottle on the first dive leaving all but 200 psi in my doubles. This allowed me over 180 cu feet of gas for emergency and for the second dive. I did a 3 minute deco/safety stop on O2. Zoom+ CF Milwaukee wheelhouse Michael Angelo Gagliardi

The second dive was on the stern. Bill and Cheryl teamed up while Jeff and I were buddies. Howard chose to do just one dive. I was in the water first and waited for Jeff at the stern. I shot a composite of the stern and of the bent sea gates. When Jeff joined me I head forward penetrating in and out of the ship examining the rail road cars. We never broke 105 feet so my gas lasted a long time. At about mid ship I hit "1/3's" on my air supple and turned the dive swimming along starboard back to the stern. As we did a slow ascent back up I shot several shots both down at the wreck and at my dive buddy on deco. As a rule of thumb I do a slow ascent of 10 per minute. We had a 15 minute deco at 15 feet. Dive time for us was 60 minutes at 105 foot max. The composites I've shot so far can be seen by clicking on the slideshow tab above.

Michael Angelo Gagliardi

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