A final check of your equipment, a quick look behind you, and a mildly disorienting backward roll over your boat's gunwale. The cool waters of the St. Lawrence River quickly envelop you, filling your wetsuit and heightening your excitement about the adventure that awaits just 40 feet below.

An "OK" hand signal from your dive partner begins the underwater journey. Releasing the air from your buoyancy vest, you start your decent down the buoy line. Your head fills with the sounds of the river: shifting sand and rocks, buzzing motorboat engines, and the slow rhythmic hiss and gurgle of your own mechanical breathing. The current of the river's upper layer tugs at you, but its strength soon lessens as you continue to descend.

Looking below, the buoy line disappears into the translucent emerald sheen of the St. Lawrence. Descending deeper, an indistinct object resembling a serpentine head and neck begins to materialize at the end of the line. The image becomes sharper as you approach closer, and reaching out, you grasp the upper life-boat davit of the M.V. WOLFE ISLANDER II!

From here on out your SCUBA dive is an enjoyable and exciting exploration through this sunken ship's many rooms, stairways, hatches, decks and engine spaces.

This massive car ferry was built in 1946 in Collingwood, ON. She ferried vehicles between Wolfe Island and Kingston for 30 years before being decommissioned.

In 1985, a fund raising drive involving local divers, Canadian businesses, government, and Save Ontario Shipwrecks, enable the vessel to be purchased and prepared for intentional sinking in the St. Lawrence River as an recreational dive site.

Sitting upright and intact, the Wolfe Islander II quickly became one of the region's most popular dive attractions. It's not rare to see several boats idling around her mooring buoys, as divers wait their turn. The dive is worth any wait you may encounter.

The Wolfe Islander II is located off the north shore of Wolfe Island between Dawson Point and buoy G "H43." Two mooring buoys make the wreck easy to locate and eliminate the hazards associated with dropping anchors on the site.

One buoy is attached to an upper life-boat davit near the ship's stern at a depth of 40 feet. The other is attached to a deeper point on the bow. The car deck is at 75 feet and the river bottom is in 95 feet of water. The range in depths make this an appropriate dive for intermediate to advanced divers.

The sunken ferry is a veritable underwater playground. Divers can poke around the exterior of the ship, swimming along the superstructure's walkways and across the car deck.

Or, divers can explore inside the vessel. All doors and hatches were welded open prior to sinking to make penetration of the wreck safer. Divers can enter the ship's superstructure and swim through interior rooms, up and down staircases, and into the engine room.

Over the years, divers' exhaled air has collected at the ceilings of many rooms, creating large air spaces. Although it's inadvisable to breath old exhausted air, if you continue to breath in through your regulator you can "surface" in an air space and have a conversation with your dive buddy while still under 50 feet of water!

Although located in Canadian waters, the wreck can be accessed from several American-shore launch ramps located in and between Cape Vincent and Clayton, NY, including Burnham Point State Park and Cedar Point State Park. Or, if you have a small enough boat, you can take the Cape Vincent ferry over to Wolfe Island and launch at Marysville.