Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival

Presented by the Ford Seahorses in conjunction with the Dossin Great Lakes Museum

April 20, 2009

Programs & Presenters: Andy Donato & Randall McDonald

Outside of diving, Andy Donato is an Electrical Engineer for Detroit Edison, at their St. Clair Power Plant. Andy holds a U.S. Coast Guard Captain license and spends summer weekends running dive charters out of Lake Huron thumb area ports.

Andy has been diving the Great Lakes for 35 years and has been a trimix diver for the last six years. His passion for researching and documenting Great Lakes shipwrecks has kept him involved in many multimedia presentations across the years, throughout the Great Lakes region.

Randall McDonald has been diving for 14 years, the latter half as a trimix diver, and for the last three, a closed circuit re-breather diver. He has been to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the Caribbean, and the caves of Florida and Mexico. However, his favorite diving remains the Great Lakes. He took up video some 10 years back, more so he could re-live his dives, but now enjoys putting together programs on Great Lakes wrecks for the historical perspective.

Andy Donato and Randall McDonald first paired up six years ago for the production of a video document on Minnedosa; Canada's largest sailing schooner, built in Kingston, Ont. More recently, their research has centered on a victim of the Great Storm of 1913, the Steamer John A. McGean. Their video program "Coal, Steel and Storm" covers the development of coal trade on the lakes, leading into the Great Storm and explores what is now the wreck site of the John A. McGean.

We hope to see you there next year, The Ford Seahorses.