Marine sanctuary staff removes mooring buoys for the season
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ALPENA -- The Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (TBNMS)fished out the mooring buoys from sanctuary waters signalling the end of the diving season in Northeast Michigan. TBNMS staff said that the process ran according to schedule and they did not encounter unseasonable weather.
Mooring buoys are positioned around the sanctuary at wreck sites and are attached to anchors. There is a tagline that allows divers to tie to their boat so they don’t have to drop anchor and potentially damage the wreck. They can use the tagline to pull themselves down to the wreck site.
In the spring, divers manually install the buoys within the sanctuary waters, and in the fall, crews pull them up from the water and onto boats.
According to Sarah Morrison, TBNMS media and outreach specialist, the local dive community began placing mooring buoys within the sanctuary before TBNMS was designated in 2000.
"When it was designated in 2000, one of the first initiatives was to create the mooring buoy system," she said.
The mooring buoys have been used in the sanctuary for two decades.
This year, it took TBNMS staff two weeks to remove all 52 mooring buoys from the sanctuary, according to Andi Yoxsimer, TBNMS resource protection specialist. She said that the crew tries to get the mooring buoys out of the sanctuary waters within that time frame, though it is a feat for a small crew to accomplish.
"It's a lot of buoys for a small team, so it’s always a bit of a challenge. It’s a lot of work, but I think as a team, we’ve got it pretty well figured out," Yoxsimer said. "It's a very efficient process now, but it takes a little while."
"We had a few northern buoys that we weren’t able to get a few weeks ago, just because of the weather," she added. "That’s kind of the main issue with pulling them out. We were actually able to get all of them out pretty early this year. If we can get them out by Halloween, we’re pretty happy."
Yoxsimer explained that the mooring buoys are one of the sanctuary’s "main management strategies" to protect the shipwrecks while also making them accessible to boaters, divers, and kayakers.
"At Thunder Bay, we really want people to be able to interact and see the shipwrecks," she said. "The mooring buoys are a great way, the shallow ones, are good for kayakers, or paddle boarders to identify where the wreck is."
Even at the deeper wreck sites, mooring buoys are an essential tool for divers and anglers to use to avoid the wrecks and any potential damage to the site.
"They’re really important for people that want to dive on the site, fish on the site, because if they can attach to a mooring buoy, they don’t have to put an anchor down and potentially cause damage to the shipwreck," she said. "So they’re very, very important for our mission here at Thunder Bay."
Kayla Wikaryasz can be reached at 989-358-5688 or kwikaryasz@TheAlpenaNews.com.