Thousand Islands - August 2007

About an eight hour drive from Pittsburgh, the Rockport area of Ontario is beautiful. The term "1000 Islands" is apt due to the numerous islands large and small in the St. Lawrence River. Many have houses built on them; some houses take up almost the entire island. Owners build little light houses, suspension bridges, boat garages, etc. that make the properties unique-we even saw the world's shortest international bridge (the same person owned one island in the U.S. and another, about 20 feet away, in Canada). The famous Boldt Castle on Heart Island is where we went through customs to dive a couple wrecks in the U.S.

We based our diving with 1000 Island Pleasure Diving in Rockport. The most convenient place to stay would have been Cagier's, right at the docks, but since that, plus other nearby lodging, was booked, we stayed at the Best Western in Brockville, about 25 minutes away. Brockville, located next to the St. Lawrence River, is one of the oldest cities in Ontario, has an active cultural schedule, some great restaurants, shore diving, great views, and Canada's first train tunnel.

The highlight was diving the wheel house, at a depth of 170' on the Roy A Jodrey, a 640' self unloader cargo ship. The wreck begins at 150' and goes to 240'. We also dove the Kinghorn, the Keystorm, the J.B. King, and a couple of drift dives.

The St. Lawrence River is a great diving destination for several reasons. Its only eight hours from Pittsburgh, the water is clear due to the zebra mussels, weather is seldom a factor, boat rides are relatively short, the water is in the mid 70's in the summer, all skill levels can be accommodated, there's great support for technical diving, and there are many other interesting things to do in the area. The only possible negative might be the current, but it's not a problem if handled properly. We made eight dives at 6 different sites in five days, plus did lots of class work. Our last day we dove at 11:00am, were on the road by 2:00pm and home at 9:30pm. Not bad!