Have you ever dreamed of visiting a shipwreck and finding gems that are decades — if not centuries — old?
Gerry Raasch was able to do that, and six decades later, artifacts he has are “exactly as I found them.”
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The objects are from a shipwreck located in Lake Michigan that represent a link to life back sometime in the 1800s.
There are corroded spoons that are encrusted with some sort of substance. There are other spoons that still have a shiny, smooth finish.
There are also small toys beautifully detailed and a shoe/belt buckle.
Raasch said all were uncovered from a shipwreck at the bottom of a bay next that feeds into Lake Michigan north of Green Bay back in the early 1960s.
After reading our article on how the next 30 years could be the “golden age” of shipwrecks, Raasch felt compelled to share his findings and story of how he used to dive to shipwrecks in the early 60s while living in Wisconsin.
“As I recall the water was about 100 to 105-feet deep at the wreck site,” said Raasch, who now lives in southwest Florida. “I don’t think anyone knew the name of the wreck. But judging from the items we found, we all estimated it to be from the mid-to-late 1800’s. It was a wooden ship.”
Searching for shipwrecks has become much easier now due to factors such as global warming and better technology, benefits Raasch didn’t enjoy when he was a SCUBA instructor and did numerous dives in the 1960s.
“There were no decent diving lights in those days,” he said. “Some of us fashioned our own lights using a large aluminum pressure cooker, a 12 volt car battery, a simple frame and two car headlamps. You could see the oxygen and hydrogen being generated at the connection points.”
“The wet suits of the day really had a hard time coping with the cold water, so many of us wore a dry suit over the wet suit on occasion,” Raasch continued. “We would take a thermos of hot water from the hotel with us on the boat and have someone pour it in the dry suit before we closed it up for the dive.”
After recovering the items, Raasch has kept and preserved them for more than 60 years.
Raasch said he would be interested in donating the items to the historical museum in Door County, Wisconsin.