Tourism Tuesday: Munising Bay Shipwreck Tours

Tonight, we’re launching a summertime series.

Its focus is on attractions across the U.P. we often take for granted, but don’t always take advantage of.

Our ‘Tourism Tuesday’ series begins in Munising.

Employees of Munising Bay Shipwreck Tours are putting the finishing touches on their fleet.

They open for the season this saturday.

Capt. Joe Lindquist says they’ve been painting the boats since early April and they put them in the water right around May 1st.

This is the company’s 20th anniversary season.

The glass–bottom boat tours were an offshoot of a tour boat for scuba divers that had already been operating for years.

Capt. Theresa Karr says the families of the scuba divers often came along.

She says Capt. Pete Lindquist, Joe’s father and the owner of the business, would often let the relatives of the divers borrow polarized sunglasses so that they could see what their loved ones were up to underwater.

Karr says the idea went over so well that Pete eventually bought a tour boat, installed a glass bottom in it and began giving non-diving shipwreck tours in 1992.

Munising Bay Shipwreck Tours bills itself as the only place in the U.S. that you can see real shipwrecks aboard a glass–bottom boat.

The company still offers dive tours from the 38–foot Wreck Express.

Two 60–footers, the Miss Munising and the Fireball, take passengers to three shipwreck sites.

A cruise costs $30 for adults, $27 for seniors and $12 for kids 12 and under.

Reservations aren’t required, but they are recommended.

The season lasts through October 13th.

Posted by: Mike Hoey