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PRESS RELEASE: Use before August 30, 2007
Contact: Teresa Mitchell or Peggy Morgia, 315-646-1000
Dive Captain to Talk about The Wreck of The Islander at Seaway Trail Discovery Center August 30
Sackets Harbor, NY – The first shipwreck Ken Kozin explored as a novice diver 12 years ago was the Islander, a wooden sidewheel steamer built in 1871. Today, Captain Ken Kozin, certified by the Professional Association of Dive Instructors for the past ten years and a US Coast Guard Licensed Captain, guides people to the Islander which is easily accessible from shore and to offshore wrecks aboard his custom-designed Thousand Islands Dive Excurisions boat out of Clayton, NY. On Thursday, August 30 at 6 pm Kozin will talk about the wreck of the Islander at Alexandria Bay at the Seaway Trail Discovery Center in Sackets Harbor, NY. The program is part of the “Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes Seaway Trail” exhibit at the Discovery Center.
Kennard and Scoville are certified divers and electrical engineers who together have discovered shipwrecks in Lake Ontario since 2002. They have developed underwater detection equipment and search techniques used to discover everything from the oldest wooden straight deck bulk freighter operating on the Great Lakes in 1919 to a Coast Guard cable boat that sank in 1977.
“The visibility of the Seaway Trail waters and the spectacular collection of wrecks make the byway region ideal for divers,” Kozin says. “As for The Islander, she burned before sinking in 1909. She sits upright on her starboard side and is an excellent site for novice divers to explore.”
New York Sea Grant Recreation and Tourism Specialist and Dive the Seaway Trail project coordinator David G. White says, “Wrecks such as the Islander are a great resource to offer beginning divers, and as more and more divers become interested in our fascinating freshwater shipwrecks and improve their diving skills the Seaway Trail shoreline communities will reap the economic benefit.”
A New York Sea Grant study showed scuba divers represented an annual economic impact of more than $108 million to New York’s Great Lakes Seaway Trail region in 1999.
The wreck of The Islander is one of the dive sites selected for the Dive the Seaway Trail project that notes diving destinations of particular note or skill level via the website at www.seawaytrail.com.
“We are pleased that increasing numbers of divers are discovering the Great Lakes Seaway Trail as a treasure trove of underwater destinations and that a number of dive charter services are available to help them reach the wrecks,” says Teresa Mitchell, Seaway Trail, Inc. President and CEO. “The Dive the Seaway Trail project is designed to build on this historic maritime heritage with the exhibit, speakers series, new outdoor interpretive panels being installed this year and a Seaway Trail maritime heritage guidebook currently in development.”
Seaway Trail, Inc. has begun installing a new series of maritime theme and shipwrecks outdoor interpretive panels at sites Trailwide to encourage people to travel the full length of the 518-mile America’s Byway along the freshwater St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie.
The Shipwrecks speakers series concludes with a September 20th presentation on Great Lake Seaway Trail Haunted Shipwrecks by Great Lakes historian and author Frederick Stonehouse at Jefferson Community College in Watertown, NY, at 12:30 pm.
At the Seaway Trail Discovery Center through September 20 in Sackets Harbor, NY, is a Great Lakes Seaway Trail Shipwrecks exhibit. The Discovery Center is open daily 10 am to 5 pm. The exhibit is sponsored by the Seaway Trail Foundation, New York and Pennsylvania Sea Grants, TGI Fridays, Day’s Inn-Denny’s, French Creek Marina, Key Bank, the New York State Divers Association and the Social Cultural Committee and Hospitality & Tourism Student Organization of Jefferson Community College. The exhibit includes an interactive underwater-simulated learning program courtesy of Pennsylvania Sea Grant, a series of interpretive panels, an underwater photography display provided by the Oswego Maritime Foundation, and the reclaimed ships’ anchors on loan from French Creek Marina.
The Seaway Trail Discovery Center, operated by Seaway Trail, Inc. and the Seaway Trail Foundation is in the former Union Hotel built in 1817-1818 and owned by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. For more information, go to www.seawaytrail.com or call 315-646-1000. # # #
