George M. Cox Dive Site

The George M. Cox Dive Site

Depth Range 15' to 100'

The George M. Cox Site is the easterly buoy on the Rock of Ages Shoal

There are three buoys marking shipwrecks on the shoal and the easterly buoy marks the George M. Cox site. The mooring buoy is attached to the boilers in about 40' of water. Be careful as you approach the wreck with your boat since the shoal is fairly shallow and wraps around the wreck in that area. The most intact portion of the wreck starts at boilers and goes down to about 100'deep.

The Cox was a passenger ship and you will see numerous artifacts to support that trade including luggage carts, cabin sinks and lights. As you descend the mooring line you will first see the four Scotch boilers with steam drums on the top. The steam drums collected the steam generated by the boiler. As you swim toward deeper water you are heading toward the stern of the ship. The hull twists from laying on its side to being totally inverted as you reach the sternpost. If you swim to the right side as you face the stern and look under the side of the ship you can see the heads of the triple expansion steam engine. In this area you can also see the luggage carts and an electrical panel.

As you approach the upside down fantail of the ship, off to the right side is the badly damaged rudder. The bottom at this point is 100' so keeping off the bottom will lengthen your dive time. As you round the stern to the other side of the ship you will see the propeller and shaft lying off to the side. The shaft is intact and still leads to the base of the engine, although the side of the ship has collapsed on it and makes the engine inaccessible. As you swim up the side of the ship you will see what looks like a large four foot long spanner wrench lying on the side of the hull. This was the wrench used to swing the reverse shaft if the "steam assist" reverse engine failed (see Engine Interpretation under the Chisholm Engine section). The engineers could lift the wrench into place and manually move the valve slides. You will also see parts of the railing off to your right.

Although it is a little difficult to navigate to the bow wreckage, you can follow the line of the ship up and over the shallows of the shoal to the debris field in 10' to 20' of water. From the direction you are facing as you come over the shoal from the stern section, the bow and anchors would be at the end of the debris trail to your left about 25 yards away (depending on where you cross the shoal). In the 1970's a portion of the bow was actually intact and housed the anchor chain. Now ice and storms have pummeled it to a pile of steel plates. Although the touring the shallows is easy on air, remember you are quite a distance from the boat mooring so allow time to navigate back.