Diving the Empress of Ireland:

Written by Capt. Dave Caldwell

            It was the end of winter back in 1993, during the Boston Sea Rovers show in March.  I came across a group from Montreal that was setting up a trip to the Grand Dame of wreck diving.  It wasn’t the famed wreck known as Andrea Doria, it was another famed wreck off of Rimouski Canada in the St. Lawrence seaway known as the Empress of Ireland.  Not many divers at this time even knew that the wreck existed.  But for avid wreck divers it was another Everest caliber dive.  Its true claim to fame was that it was known as being one of the worst marine catastrophes at sea.  Almost 1100 lives where taken with it’s demise, the ship went down in 14 minutes after being hit broadside by a coaler ship with an ice breaker bow.  This impact sliced through the side off the Empress to the keel and down she went.

            What makes the wreck an Everest caliber dive was not the depth or the distance offshore, but the conditions in where the wreck lies.  The St. Lawrence Seaway is known for harsh conditions, which change on a moments notice.  Not only do the conditions change constantly with the changing of the tides but the season in which you want to dive the wreck.  The recommended window to dive the wreck is in late July to August.  The currents are furious and the visibility is poor, often with complete darkness; to make it worst the water temperature is freezing, generally with no thermocline.  So for decompression diving you can plan on getting chilled.  The average temperature in August was 33^o- 44 ^o F depending on which way the tide was running.

            Heading to Canada was very economical with the exchange rate being so good at that time.  The whole expedition was costing each diver about $500.00 for travel by car, lodging, and diving.  That was a lot less than a trip out to the Doria.  I talked with quite a few experienced divers in joining us, but I didn’t have many takers at that time.  For one reason or another people where not jumping on this trip, but I did find two other divers that where up for this expedition.  After making all the arrangements with the operation in Montreal, the trip was going to fly.  A few people pulled me aside before leaving and warned me about making this journey, they said that it was a bad wreck and you can get into some real trouble.  I took the advice very seriously and never forgot it, but it didn’t change my plans.  Although I didn’t back off of doing this trip I did have a very conservative attitude, which I remembered on each dive.

            The drive from Massachusetts took about 12-16 hours with stopping for breaks.  We left on a Monday and arrived that night late.  It’s amazing that you can travel about two hours from New England and be in a foreign country that speaks a completely different language.  Generally we don’t think of it that way but it is true, there is a foreign country less than two hours away.  We where staying at a hotel across from the marina where the boat was picking us up.  The trips where day trips to the wreck because its only a few miles off shore.  This makes it very easy because you are back at the hotel each night and having a good dinner at local restaurants.  The boat provided air so we didn’t need to chase down air at the end of the day.  We all brought our own O2, enough for all of the dives.  If everything went as planned we would be diving for three days getting in the water twice a day.

            When we arrived in Rimouski we knew we weren’t in New England anymore because we had to change from shorts into long pants and lightweight jackets.  The temperature was in the 50 ^o -60 ^o during the day, and at night it dropped down below that.  The sun was out but it felt like it was in early spring in N.E. with a slight bite in the air.  Rimouski has a lot going on, one thing we needed to keep in mind was that they speak French Canadian and we spoke English.  After we met the others divers on the boat the next day we solved that problem as well as finding our way around.  The other divers were from Toronto, Canada, and they spoke French and English.

            One of the best parts of the trips was the boat; it was a 90’ whale watching boat that came up from another location.  It was a monster of a boat, all steel with plenty of room.  One draw back was that it was not equipped with a dive ladder.  We ended up getting back onboard by removing our tanks in the water and climbing into an inflatable.  The boat crew would muscle our tanks back on board for us.  Thank God for those sorry bastards.  The other thing about this trip is that we had only 5 paying divers and 1 of the crew dove, six-divers total on a 90’ boat.  The divers from Toronto knew the wreck quite well.  Infact in later years one of the divers did a special with Robert Ballard on diving the Empress, so he must of known the wreck.  Between the three Americans and two Canadians this worked quite well, we all worked together to help each other out.

The area of Rimouski is one of the larger and more populated areas.  While traveling up there you get a real sense of how vast Canada really is.  There where large areas of open land, then you would come to a town or city.  Getting around is relatively easy with nice roads and fast travel.  The currency was difficult at first, we kind of thought of it as play money until it started running out.  We did try to use credit cards as much as we could.  One reason was that we got the best exchange rate and second was we didn’t have to work the math if we paid in U.S. currency.  Overall we found people pleasant and the area to be very clean.  One thing that did start becoming an issue was the communication; when speaking we found ourselves having someone translate or we used good old fashion sign language.  

            The first day we naturally worked out a dive rotation. We all ended up solo diving with a steady flow of getting into the water.  First the Canadians helped the Yanks getting in the water and then the Yanks helped the Canadians.  After each dive everyone shared information on his successes.  The other thing that I should mention is that the wreck wasn’t protected from taking artifacts, or maybe it was but no one seemed to care about the portholes, unopened wine bottles, lamps, along with your typical china coming up off the wreck.  It wasn’t as much the Yanks finding stuff but the more knowledgeable people that knew the wreck did well, although the Yanks had a fair share of the goodies.  The conditions where very good for the most part, we had maybe 5’-10’ of visibility at the most.  The temperature was cold, real cold.  We where tied into the rail at about 90’-100’ at the most.  The wreck went down to 140’-145’ to the mud.  The wreck is real big and it has been chewed up over the years from professional salvage crews doing their destruction thing.  So it was disorientating to navigate at first, but once you got some bearing you could figure out where you were.

             The second day the weather started picking up but the conditions where on our side, mostly rough sea conditions, probably 3’-5’ over the wreck and a strong current.  To give a sense of how strong the currents were moving, you would need to pull yourself down the line and dive in the lee of the wreck.  The current would blow you right off the wreck if you weren’t careful.  At the end of the day we had made arrangements to go to the Empress Museum located in Rimouski.  We set it up to go after they closed because that’s when we got back to the dock.  We checked out the whole museum and at the end we talked with the person giving us the tour to show us deck plans that had been tucked away in back.  This was one of the highlights of the trip.  We all got to get a real good understanding of where we were diving on the wreck.

            The last day was the best for the visibility, it had picked up between tide changes and we must have had 30’ visibility, which was outstanding.  Although good things never last long because on the next change of the tide the weather went to hell real quick, the visibility went down to zero and the seas picked up.  We came back to shore with 8’-10’ seas, wind and rain.  It was perfect timing because we all got in our six dives and everyone had one of the best trips of their lives.  Something that I never forgot was the comments I got prior to leaving about it being a dangerous wreck.  It is a bad wreck and it wasn’t easy diving.  It’s amazing that even diving shallow doesn’t mean it’s easy.  It took a lot of skill and experience to achieve successful dives and to make it safe and fun.

            The week flew by and we ended our expedition with a group dinner at a nice local restaurant.  The dive operator and the boat crew all joined us and we found that we where treated a little nicer with locals that could speak the language.  I figured the locals found it to be a pain to communicate with us, although overall people where friendly and helpful to outsiders.  We headed back to the hotel and got a good night sleep for our long trek back home.