Clear Waters Show Off Lake Michigan's Century Old Shipwrecks

With Lake Michigan's ice gone for the season, the unusually clear water allowed a Coast Guard helicopter crew from Traverse City, Mich. to get views of normally obscured wreckages in the area where many ships foundered in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

While flying a routine patrol Friday, an aircrew captured photos of a handful of the shipwrecks along the Lake Michigan shoreline and posted the images on their Facebook page on Sunday. Some of the shipwrecks like the 121 foot James McBride (pictured above near Sleeping Bear Point) which sank on Oct. 19, 1857, have been identified, but information on the others are scarce.