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[Forsythia]

http://michiganradio.org/post/team-resumes-search-oldest-shipwreck-great-lakes

The search for the oldest shipwreck in the Great Lakes has resumed.  The team that believes it has found the wreck is moving ahead after closing a legal dispute with the State of Michigan.  They’re trying to prove that what they’ve found in Lake Michigan could be a French ship that disappeared in 1679.
 
It’s been thirty years since Great Lakes Exploration began searching for the Griffon.  In fact, the original team has been at it so long, they’re running out of time to see it through themselves.
 
Jim Cucharski is one of the original divers on the team.  But he’s not in the water today because he recently had a heart attack.
 
In fact, just one of the original divers, Cucharski’s brother Tom, is in good shape for diving this week.
 
"You know, time takes its toll. We’re all getting older. I was like thirty years old when I started this and I’m 63 now, so, yeah, it doesn't get any better, you know?"

[The Fuzz]

Hum, in 1679 aye!  Wouldn't that mean that the French ship would have to have been built on US ground West of Niagara Falls?  I can't think of another passage through the St. Lawrence waterway to get there.

[livewire]

Hum, in 1679 aye!  Wouldn't that mean that the French ship would have to have been built on US ground West of Niagara Falls?  I can't think of another passage through the St. Lawrence waterway to get there.

Right you are, Fuzz!

Le Griffon was constructed and launched at or near Cayuga Creek on the Niagara River as a seven-cannon, 45-ton barque. La Salle and Father Louis Hennepin set out on the Le Griffon's maiden voyage on August 7, 1679 with a crew of 32, sailing across Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan through uncharted waters that only canoes had previously explored.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Griffon


La Salle was one of the first French explorers of North America, surveying the Great Lakes region and the Mississippi river watershed, trading in fur and buffalo hides, and skirmishing with Indians, all with the goal of protecting France's territorial claims from British and Spanish encroachment. He built the Griffin in summer 1679 to supply camps and shipyards along the Great Lakes from which he could outfit parties to explore the Illinois and Mississippi rivers.

In September 1679, La Salle dispatched the 40 to 60-foot long, 45-tonne vessel from Washington Island with a crew of six or seven men and one boy to Niagara, near the falls, to pick up more supplies and men. The ship was never seen again. From the few articles that washed ashore, the accounts of Indians who claimed to have seen the Griffin, and weather reports from the time, Libert thinks the Griffin's pilot was caught between a northwestern storm and large swells caused by an earlier storm, foundered, and went down.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/16/france-us-shipwreck-lake-michigan

[BigRedDog]

Here's a trailer for a movie about the hunt for the Griffon.  Looks pretty interesting

THE SEARCH FOR LE GRIFFON - RUBANGFILMS - TRAILER on Vimeo

[Will Sweat]

Very cool story.  Thx's for sharing.

[eriemermaid]

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" - Gordon Lightfoot (HD w/ Lyrics)
 
Hey, if I have to suffer having this song run through my brain over and over from this thread, I will share it!

[The Fuzz]

Yea, I like his stuff though.  Look to be hearing it more often coming up here soon on the anniversary of the sinking.

EM....did you know that cruises are being offered on the Great Lakes?  Looked on the pricy side to me, but the ships are smaller and appears they are a little more upscale than some of the ocean vessels.  I'm considering it.....just wish they would allow fishing off the stern.  LOL

[eriemermaid]

There was a hairdresser from Hollywood on my cruise.  On every port call he had his fishing pole out and ready.  I watched him pull in a few fish.  One of them he gave to the harbor master at the first Egypt stop.