That’s not a sunken ship in the Bahamas you’re looking at, but an ill-fated vessel in the frigid waters of Lake Michigan. The great lake is currently in a state of springtime transition that occurs each year after the winter ice melts and before the return of summer sediment and algae.

A US Coast Guard aircrew photographed the wreckage of several ships last week during a routine patrol along the northern shoreline. One of the pilots, Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Wilson, told NPR that it’s "fairly common" to spot an old wreck on patrols "but not in the numbers we saw on that flight." A few of the wrecks are known, including in the 1857 wreckage of the James McBride and 1917 wreckage of the Rising Sun, but others are either new or yet to be identified.

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