Kian has been diving since 2014 and has spent the years since pushing into more technical territory, earning his deep certification in 2019, cave in 2022, and decompression procedures in 2023. That progression tracks closely with his engineering interests, technical diving rewards the same careful risk assessment, redundancy planning, and equipment discipline that shows up in his design work.
Why neither one has a name
Both hulls are riveted steel, which brackets construction to before roughly 1950, when welding displaced riveting in shipyard practice. Beyond that the two are different animals: Keith’s is a bottom-dump hopper scow built to carry dredge spoil and drop it through the floor, while Cody’s is a flat-decked work barge that carried a crane and standing deck structure. What they share is a job description, both were unpowered hulls in the Great Lakes dredging and marine-construction trade, towed or pushed where they were needed.
Neither wreck carries a plaque, papers, or any other identifying mark. Everything was apparently stripped before they went down, and on Keith’s Barge there is nothing left at all. Kian’s working theory is that this stretch of lakebed served as a dumping ground, where companies scuttled worn-out barges rather than pay to have them properly broken up. The practice has precedent on the Great Lakes; the barge EMBA was deliberately scuttled off Milwaukee in 1932 after 42 years of service. Stripped identification is the detail that stands out, and it is what keeps both of these hulls unnamed.
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20Every number below comes from the logbook Kian has kept for the last twelve years: depths, durations, and sites, as recorded.
