PHOTO OP-ED: A vessel with ties to Port Washington bound for adventure

When the rugged 95-foot steel vessel named Ultimate Getaway tied up at Coal Dock Park recently, it was its first visit to Port Washington, but the boat will likely return from time to time.

Two of its owners, Matthew Savatski and his father Robert Savatski, are members of a Port Washington family.

Matthew and another co-owner, Mark “Sharkey” Alexander, and their crew brought the boat from Fort Myers Beach, Fla., to the Great Lakes via the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers in September.

After the Port Washington stop, the boat steamed up Lake Michigan and into Lake Superior, where it will undergo a refit at the port of Washburn, Wis., in preparation for its new life as a liveaboard dive charter vessel plying the Great Lakes.

In Florida, Matthew Savatski and Alexander operated the vessel, which had been built to service oilfield operations in the Gulf of Mexico, as a spearfishing and dive boat in the Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas.

A certified commercial diver who did underwater work in Seattle, Wash., and in Scotland, Savatski is a Port High graduate and former member of the Port Fire Department dive team and crew of the Ozaukee rescue boat.

Alexander, who serves as one of the boat’s captains, has a résumé that includes extreme deep-water diving in the waters of Africa, Malta, Poland and Alaska. In 2013, he led the expedition to record video images of the sunken Civil War vessel USS Monitor off the North Carolina coast.