These breathtaking photographs show the wreckage of a ship that sank over a century ago and has been preserved for all this time beneath the ice of Lake Superior.
The ship has retained almost precisely the same appearance as it did on the day that it sank beneath the waves in 1911.
The vessel known as “The Gunilda,” which measured 60 meters in length and was constructed in Leith, Scotland in the year 1897, capsized after colliding with some rocks and could not be salvaged.
A small party of divers went back to the site of the shipwreck 107 years after it had sunk, and now we have these breathtaking photographs that they took while there.
In order to photograph the ruins of the Gunilda and reach it, Becky Kagan Schott and her team plunged an amazing 270 feet below the surface.
According to Becky, who works as a professional underwater photographer, cameraman, and instructor of technical diving, they had prepared themselves adequately for the potentially life-threatening dive.
The Philadelphian explorer recounts how terrifying the encounter was despite the fact that she was one of just 25 people aboard the ship.
Becky, who is 35 years old, stated that visiting the place was “truly like going back in time,” and that it had the atmosphere of a hunting lodge.
“In all the years that I’ve spent diving shipwrecks, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Being there felt like something out of a dream to me. It took years of skill in both diving and photography for me to be able to safely capture the photographs of this shipwreck that I had envisioned in my head. I had always wanted to see this shipwreck.
“It’s very amazing to look through windows and see things like a piano that has not been moved, a card table and chairs next to a fireplace with a clock hanging over it, and the galley with gold-rimmed crockery still sitting on the shelf. All of these things are still there.
“Because of its isolated location, depths of 270 feet, and temperatures of 38 degrees Fahrenheit or 3 degrees Celsius, the Gunilda is not frequented by very many divers.
“I wanted to capture photographs of the wreck like she’s never been seen before, and that meant bringing a small team of very skilled divers to assist me,” said the photographer. “I wanted to get images of the wreck like she’s never been seen before.”
“We only have 25 minutes at that level to get the photo before we have to decompress for another 75 minutes before we can return to the surface. “
“Everything needs to be coordinated like a ballet, so in one picture there are five of us to catch the wide perspective of the gold leafed bow,” the director explained.