A diver's paradise — in upstate New York

Buoy markers show where each site is located. Shore-based interpretative panels are located at the primary access point for each site, giving information about the site and the area's maritime history.

White said it became clear there were unrealized economic development opportunities after a 1999 study showed divers put more than $108 million into New York's Great lakes region each year — even without a concentrated marketing campaign.

The Underwater Blueway Trail — an idea nearly 40 years in the making — involves Lake George, Freeport (Atlantic Ocean coastal waters), Plattsburgh (Lake Champlain); Dunkirk (Lake Erie), Oswego (Lake Ontario) and Geneva (Seneca Lake).

"It's a concept divers began talking about in late 1970s but the early attempts never seemed to go anywhere. It was strictly a matter of money," said Steve Resler, the assistant chief in the state Division of Coastal Resources' Resources Management Bureau and one of the project's chief advocates.

But the six municipalities found $220,000 in matching grant money through the state Environmental Protection Fund, and coaxed another $100,000 from the state's Parks and Historic Preservation to develop the trail. The municipalities are currently working on site recommendations.

Resler would like to see the Underwater Blueway Trail expand and eventually serve as an umbrella for regional dive trails around the state, such as the Seaway dive trail. The dive trails are being developed to complement above-water state and national scenic, recreation and heritage corridors.

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Lake George, which has maintained and promoted its own sites for over a decade, is the model for both trails, White and Resler said.

There are three sites located there.

One features the bottom planks of seven bateaux, double-ended vessels used to carry troops, sunk by the British in 1758 near the Wiawaka Holiday House boat house, on the east side of the lake at about 40 feet. The site is marked by a surface buoy and the wrecks are joined by underwater lines.

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About a half-mile northeast of Tea Island is the radeaux, Land Tortoise, another ship intentionally sunk by the British in 1758 and rediscovered in 1990. The Land Tortoise has been designated by the Smithsonian Institution as "the oldest intact warship in North America." The wreck is for advanced divers at 107 feet and registration with the Department of Environmental Conservation is required to dive the site.

There's also a site for beginning divers featuring a 45-foot tour boat, The Forward, that sank in about 40 feet of water in the early 1900s. The site is set up as an underwater wreck-diving classroom. There's also an underwater navigation course and submerged signs to describe the ship and the area's geology, biology and thermoclines.

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