For nearly a decade now I have worked as a captain and crew member, PADI divemaster, and musician on boats in Door County, WI. Widely regarded in the region as the Cape Cod of the Midwest, Door County has been a playground for the upper middle class and wealthy elites from the cities further south for over a century, and more recently has made many lists for one of the best vacation spots in the country, bringing a record number of over three million annual visitors to a small peninsula with less than 500 square miles of land and a little over 30,000 year round residents.
The waters surrounding our peninsula, however, tell a very different story: one of early exploration, burgeoning commerce, extreme and unpredictable weather, and the hardships of a life at sea and on the edges of the frontier. In my (very limited) free time, I like to explore the history of the region, especially under the water in the literal hundreds of shipwrecks surrounding our mere 300 miles of shoreline. My daughter often accompanies me, as I have been taking her snorkeling and freediving since she was six years old, and together we try to share this hidden history with some of the folks just passing through, in order to give a better perspective of all the events that led up to the creation of their favorite vacation spot, and a healthy respect for the land and the elements that still claim ships to this day.
Atlas Obscura has been my go-to guidebook for my own travels for quite some time, and I felt it was only appropriate to give back. This summer I plan to share some photos and folklore from our exploration and adventures around the peninsula, as well as our annual shipwreck hunting trip to the greater Great Lakes region. I hope this encourages folks to learn more about the history of their home and how they got there, and appreciate the wonders of their own backyard - I’ve been diving all over the world, but some of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen underwater are only a few hundred yards offshore of our local beach.
Happy hunting!
