Lilly Parsons
We had a fantastic Tuesday dive chartered through Abucs Scuba (http://www.divebrockville.com/main.html) again this week. The consensus was to dive the Lilly then a drift off her.
“The Lillie Parsons was a fore and aft cabin, two-masted centerboard schooner, 131 feet long with a 26 foot beam. Launched on September 14, 1868 by Parsons and Humboldt of Tonawanda, NY (Buffalo, NY), she was named after Parson’s young daughter. She held a number of speed records including the fastest round trip between Oswego and Chicago of 25 days and Milwaukee to Oswego in just 7 days.
She lived a fast, furious and short life of only 9 years, when she found her final resting place during a storm on August 5, 1877. The captain was not intimidated by the brewing storm and subsequent squall as he made his way towards Brockville with his load of coal. A sudden blow put her over on her bean ends, causing her cargo of coal to dangerously shift. She then struck a rock and began to take on water and drifted onto a 18 foot shoal just off the north corner of Sparrow Island. Fortunately there was no loss of life. Salvage was considered, but within a few weeks, she was washed from the shoal and settled upside down on the north side of Sparrow Island. An anchor and chain placed by Save Ontario Shipwrecks (S.O.S.) on Sparrow Island attached to her stern. The bow is pointed downstream.”
(Quoted from http://scubadive1000islands.com/wreck_diving_parsons.php)
(Christian Lloyd-Kohls Photo)
Our captain Vince (character as ever) gave us an orientation about the Lilly & showed us a hand-made map of the islands where we’d be drifting by. As soon as the seven of us had it clear as mud, we jumped in one after another. Once we were all together on the bottom of the anchor line Barry started interrogating Paul (at least that’s what it looks like!).
(Christian Lloyd-Kohls Photo)
With a very brief drift from the line the shadow of the bow came into sight.
(Christian Lloyd-Kohls Photo)
We did one loop around the Lilly stopping to look underneath, and admire the bow.
(Christian Lloyd-Kohls Photo)
Next we got into the real excitement! Entering the ship via the stern. Very interesting space… not big, and next to no light penetrating through the hull. The bottom was fortunately very zebra muscly which helped silt from being stirred up. One word of advice, always know the path that got you into a ship. When you can’t figure out where the five guys in front of you disappeared to, you still can turn around and safely leave.
(Photo by Tom Wilson http://www.scubaq.ca/?s=parsons)
This awesome photo taken by Tom Wilson captures the size of the space available while swimming through the Lilly.
After Paul and I rejoined the group we all together let the current sweep us off the bow. Following the rock wall we descended below 70′ to avoid the “Washing machine effect” between Sparrow & Stovin islands. I dropped down to 107′ which was my max depth. Great ride along the wall. I was laughing at a couple of people running into walls as the light got really low. We found the second line that Vince had told us about, and followed it up to where it ended. My safety stop was 5-6min because I really wanted to get a 60min bottom time on my CPU. Once completed it was surfacing and climbing onto the Helen C with the sweet custom staircase.
(Adam Kulczycki Photos)
