When you live in a state that is nearly surrounded by water, you can sometimes become complacent to the wonders that lie beneath the surface of any given body of water. They don’t call them the Great Lakes for nothing, these huge bodies of water are the freeway of thousands of vessels every day from small personal watercraft to large freighters.
Just like anything in life, not every day on the Great Lakes was actually all that great for former seaworthy crafts. It is said that there are over 8,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. Somewhat preserved, and at the same time always exposed to the elements of the water they lie in, it is the work of conservation efforts such as those of the Friends of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary that try to preserve the wrecks for future generations while at the same time allowing current generations to experience the wonder of these wrecks with guided shipwreck tours on their glass bottom boats.
Friends of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary provided our shipwreck tour in exchange for our review. As always I strive to provide an honest review for each member of our family.
Located at 500 W Fletcher St, Alpena, MI in the same building as the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center and Museum, the gift shop is the check in station for your boat tours. Inside you will also find bathrooms, though there are bathrooms on the boat as well, we all know that bathrooms on solid ground are always better. 
Tip: If you want to sit on top of the boat on the way out to the first shipwreck, which takes about 50 minutes, plan to arrive for your tour and board the boat about twenty minutes early. 
We did not get on the boat early enough, because we didn’t realize the urgency, and the top of the boat was closed to any further passengers. The bottom was a bit stuffy because most of the windows were closed, and the sound system was very difficult to hear, which made for restless kids on an hour boat ride. Luckily we realized that we were allowed to go sit on the back deck of the boat, where we were able to get a good breeze, though still couldn’t hear any of the educational information being presented. 
My kids spend a good amount of time on boats. They have one set of grandparents who live on a lake, and another that owns a boat that they take out on several inland lakes. However, on these boats, as long as Bubba has his lifejacket on, he is free to explore the boat, shift from lap to lap, etc. I don’t blame them, but the crew on this ship was very strict on their “butts on the seat” rule. This included 2 year olds. One became very stern with Bubba, and not in a joking manner. Bubba was trying to sit on his knees so that he could see what was going on, but this was not acceptable. So if your child cannot sit on their bottom without moving around for two hours, this might not be the tour for you. Buddy and Buggie didn’t necessarily like the idea of sitting still for so long, but at least they were old enough to understand that those were the rules, and did their best to follow them.
Halfway through the boat ride, we did come to a point where we had reached the first shipwreck. At this point, they invited everyone on the lower deck to stand around the metal railings that flanked the glass bottoms of the bilge. The captain moved the boat slowly front and back, side to side going over the shipwrecks and pointing out the main features. 
Then the passengers were encouraged to swap places. We finally were able to go to the top of the boat where we had a nice breeze. It was then I realized that there was a crew member who was giving lots of history about the shipwrecks, and landmarks such as the lighthouses. I would imagine that he had been doing so for the entire journey, but the speakers below did not allow for us to hear this information. They offered for anyone to swap back, but I was happy to be on top with a great breeze. It was also a great place to view the impending storms coming in. 
All of the remaining tours were canceled for the rest of the day due to the storms that would roll in one after another. The museum and the NOAA center are great backup plans for inclement weather, but as we found, much of the activities in Alpena are outdoors, and even the bowling alley is not open on the weekends in the summer.
This tour is going to be filed in the “older kids” section. Unless you have a little guy who understands the importance of sitting on their bottom for extended periods of time, even when that means all they can see is the seatback in front of them, this is probably not the best tour for the under four crowd.
Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center: 500 W Fletcher St, Alpena, MI
Depending on which shipwreck tour you choose, you could do the museum tour before or after. (Or you could take it in even if you don’t have time for the shipwreck tour. The museum is free to visit, and as soon as you walk through the doors, you will see that it is different than your average museum. You are greeted by a massive vessel in the middle of the museum, in what it looks like choppy seas. There is an occasional thunderstorm complete with lightning that rolls through, and the lighting of the entire main floor changes along with it. 
The ship is fully explorable, however it did take my kids a while to figure out how to get upstairs in the boat. So, if you are short on time, you could give hints, but if not, it was fun to watch them try many different ideas on how they might get up. Honestly not much gets past Buddy, so there is a certain level of satisfaction when the layout of an exhibit keeps him thinking for a few minutes! {Hint: there is a small wooden staircase in the back of the ship room replica on the first floor that will take you up.} Another big hit was the climbing gym located towards the back of the museum.
There is a Science on a Sphere movie theater tucked all the way in the back. I thought this would hold their attention longer than it did, but the topic of the video that was playing while we went in there was a little above them. I thought of it almost like an inverted planetarium show, and if the topic and level of interest was a little younger, I think it would have been a bigger hit. 
If you are a geocacher, the kids also found a geocache location. This is not a pastime we have jumped into yet, but anytime we find one in public, it peaks an interest and restarts the conversation about downloading an app and adding this to our travel adventures. 
NOAA Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary: 500 W Fletcher St, Alpena, MI
If you are visiting on a Saturday
(at least in the summer) anytime from noon to 3:00pm, it would be worth checking to see if they are offering
their Underwater Robotics 101: ROVs experience. This takes place in the NOAA garage that sits to the right and behind the Maritime Museum. It is free to attend, and allows families to create their own ROV (remotely operated vehicle) by following step by step instructions, and then trying your hand at maneuvering them underwater, which I will say is harder than it looks, but Buddy and Buggie were controlling theirs without much trouble in no time.
The thing that I love the most about this experience is that it is not something that I can replicate for them in any way on my own. In retrospect, I wished that they had talked a little more about the real world applications of ROVs, but there was one college intern working with multiple families on their building, and initial problem solving of the operation, and he was doing a fantastic job at juggling all of those tasks!
It is experiences like this that could potentially spark an interest in a profession that your kids didn’t even know was an option. Again, if they are Michiganders, they spend a good portion of their time very close to bodies of water that they could be exploring to engage their minds and spirits for decades to come.
If you are considering a vacation or a long weekend trip to Alpena, Michigan, I hope that you will take the time to dive into our other posts that go more in depth into specific topics of our stay:
A Weekend in Alpena with Kids: The Whole Shocking Truth
Kid Approved Places to Eat in Alpena
By the Hours – Alpena with Kids: 1, 2, 3…
Rockport State Recreation Area: Where to Actually Find Fossils with Kids
Dinosaur Gardens: Not another dead roadside attraction
