If you have never been to Tobermory Ontario, you’re in for a real treat because Tobermory has something for everyone. Tobermory is a unique place, and personally, it is one of my favourite places to visit not just for diving but just to experience the natural environment. Since 1990 Tobermory has been part of the UNESCO World Biosphere reserve to give you an idea of how special a place Tobermory is because of its natural beauty, unique site for Adventure, and some of the best cold-water diving anywhere.
Tobermory is surrounded by Fathom Five National Marine Parks, which boast 22 historical ships wrecks in the park and a few shipwrecks outside the park that have been sunk just for scuba divers. The great visibility and good dive amenities make Tobermory Ontario Canada arguably the freshwater dive capital of Canada, and I hope I can give you some useful information to help you plan a fun dive trip for the whole family.
Tobermory Ontario is located on the most northerly point of the Bruce Peninsula.
Where to stay
Tobermory will have accommodation that will work for most people. Hotels with a view of the bay. There are also several campgrounds with some catering to the diver and some even owned by fellow divers, and lately, more and more Airbnb is coming available. Keep in mind Tobermory isn’t just Canada’s dive capital, but there are a ton of outdoor activists to be had, so it gets hectic during most weekends. Book your lodging well in advance because it is very common for everything to get sold out on long weekends and weekends in the heights of the summer season. Some of the best diving is to be had in early spring and late fall as there are fewer tourists around, and that is when there are the best diving conditions.
Dive shop
Divers Den is the only shop in town. It is run by great people passionate about diving and even more passionate about Tobermory. Divers Den is a full-service shop. They provide a full rental service of any equipment you may want or need and can offer any recreational dive training with a separate training center from the dive shop.
Being the only shop in town, it gets swamped, the staff is excellent, and they do their best to provide timely, attentive service.
I would recommend calling ahead of time if you are coming with a large group and plan on renting any equipment. If you just need air fills, it’s good to contact the shop ahead of time to let them know how many divers are coming and what your gas requirements are they will always do their best to accommodate all your diving needs. Divers Den has two daily charters during peak season going out to see some of the 22 wrecks in Fathom Five National Parks. These charters are on a walk-on basis. I would suggest that you call ahead of time to find out what shipwrecks they are going to and reserve a spot. Divers Den also has an excellent snorkelling excursion, so I recommend their snorkelling tours if you want a little break for blowing bubbles.
Divers Den being the only shop in town runs a fleet of boats for dive and snorkelling charters. They have more than one boat that can be privately chartered for the day if you’re coming with a larger group. This is how I have experienced most of my dives with Divers Den. The captains on the boats are always very helpful and highly knowledgeable about the wrecks and dives site. They usually provide excellent service.
Boat fleet
Deep Obsession
23 Passengers 18 divers
45ft steel-hulled custom dive boat. This boat is great for rainy and cold conditions because it has a large enclosed area where you can keep out of the elements in between dives.
Proteus
12 Passengers 55 ft dive boat.
This boat is excellent for large groups with a 27’x17 afte deck and a heated cabin. This boat is great to spend the day on, with plenty of space on deck.
Bruce Isles
38’ft custom dive boat is one of their smaller ones. It has a heated cabin with lots of benches for gearing up. This is a fun boat to use for small groups as everyone is closer together is more fun when you know everyone on board.
Laura J
12 Passenger 45’ custom steel dive boat This is similar to most of the Divers den boats lots of deck space heated cabin for those early winter late fall dives where you want some warm reprieve before your next frigid dive.
Joseph Simon
12 passenger 50 ft steel dive boat, this one only has a covered cabin. It’s not entirely enclosed. It also has plenty of space on deck. Joseph Simon has an automatic elevator at the back of the boat instead of a ladder. This is nice for tech divers with several extra tanks but also lovely for the recreational divers to get an easy lift out of the water instead of the ladder for the change.
These are just some of their larger, regularly available dive boats. In addition, they also have several medium-sized rigid hull zodiac boats available. These can get you out to your dive site much faster than any of the steel hulls if you have a small group or are looking to dive a further out wreck than the typically visited wrecks.
One thing that makes Tobermory Canada’s freshwater dive capital is that Tobermory is located inside the
Fathom Five National Marine Park.
The Fathom Five National Marine Parks was established in 1987 to protect the environmentally sensitive and significant geology including flowerpot island and the Dolomite formation around the escarpments, the biology with several species of rare orchids and the endangered massasauga rattlesnake, and the 22 historically significant shipwrecks that are preserved for divers to experience.
Anyone diving within the Fathom Five National Parks has to buy a diving tag; they come in a day pass, two-day pass and a season pass.
Day pass $4.90 two days wristband $9.80 annual tag 19.60
This money goes into preserving the wrecks and maintaining the amenities at the dives site.
Fathom five Marine park has 22 wrecks open to the public click here to go to the official website. I’ll just mention a few of the wrecks that I don’t think you should miss out on if you have the training and the opportunity to dive.
Arabia
It is a beautiful shipwreck to dive into, and It looks like you’re descending on a ghost pirate ship when you first see it off the mooring line. Complete with Bowsprit and many dead eyes, It sits 131-foot long three-masted barge sitting at 110 feet. There usually is a thermocline between 40-60 feet, and you can expect some current between the mooring block and the wreck. It will require an advanced open water certification.
Forest city
This is a 216 ft long barge was later converted to a steamer, it hit the shore and sank following the slope of the lake bottom. When you descend, you will see the bowlines at 60 feet, and you can follow the wreck, which drops down the sloping bottom to 150 ft, watch your depth if you are recreationally certified. The Forest City is a great wreck to visit if you are diving technically, so you can spend more time on it as there are lots to see. The bow is pretty broken up, but If you take your time exploring the wrecks, there are a lot of neat features. Around mid-ship in the wreckage, you can find a staircase that leads into the lower decking. Their stern is relatively intact and has a swim through if you are so equipped. If you do swim through, please mind the wreck as not to damage or scrape anything, these wrecks are fragile, and we want them to remain intact as long as possible for everyone to enjoy.
Sweepstakes
This wreck is always fun to scuba dive. You will recognize it from every piece of media promoting Tobermory diving. It will give you the bragging right that anytime someone points to a picture of Tobermory’s wrecks. You can say, “ I dove that wreck.” The Sweepstakes is a 119ft schooner that sank in the bay, avoiding a storm in 1885. The wreck sits in 20ft of water with the cargo hold open for divers to explore. Because the boat sits in 20 ft of water the park authorities have reinforced the inside of the wreck with steel to prevent the winter ice from collapsing the wreck. They made the cargo hold safe for divers to enter when they did this. This is an excellent wreck for open water divers to get a great photo op on an accessible shipwreck.
This wreck usually is only available to divers early in the season and late in the season. However, as glass-bottom boat tours go right over the wreck all summer, making it off-limits to divers during peak seasons, I definitely think it’s worth seeing both underwaters on a dive and at least once above the water on the glass bottom boat tours.
Cave/ Grotto
The Grotto is a must-do if you have a chance when visiting Tobermory. The Grotto is about a 45 min boat ride to the site, making it one of the further dives sites but well worth the trip. The cave is located on the shoreline, and if you follow a line at about 20ft, it will bring you to a secret passage that allows you to enter the dry portion of the cave from the lakeside. This is an enjoyable dive because you get to have a very safe simulated cave diving experience, yet you are never far from the light zone or surface it just feels like you’re entering a cave. People will be enjoying the lagoon in the cave when you enter it from the lakeside and surface to surprise all the swimmers. This dive is a lot of fun and full of great photo opportunities.
A quick tip: keep your eyes peeled on the bottom. This is a great place to find lost dive masks as snorkels, as people swimming in the lagoon will lose them and not retrieve them because of the depth.
Niagara II
This wreck is one of my favourite wrecks to dive. The Niagara II was built-in 1930 as a 182-foot steel freighter that was later converted to a sand sucker which is what it was last used for before it was sunk. The Tobermory Maritime Association purchased the Niagara II in 1998 for the purpose of being sunk for divers, the maritime association worked on the Niagra II, making sure it was clean of environmental contaminants, and all doors were welded open. Holes cut in the hull to give diver easy access to the surface. A site was chosen to sink the Niagara II outside the fathom five Marine park but still just a short boat ride from Tobermory harbour. The Niagara II was sunk in about 100 feet of water, making it within reach for any diving level. The main decking sits at about 70 ft of water with the wheelhouse and lots of rigging at 40-60 feet. If you are brave and venture into the hull, there is a lot to see. There is an engine room still containing some machinery. There are several passages to explore in the inner hull and the sand-sucking area. These areas will give you a real simulated feeling of being in a confined overhead environment while still having access to the surface and light zone at all times. This wreck is a divers playground. We often use this wreck for multiple dives on the same day as there are many ways to dive into this wreck. Because it is so frequent, many local divers have sunk many surprises over the years; Everything from miss placed toilets, several bikes for riding around if you so choose and even a grand piano.
Even though I encourage you to take a charter and experience Tobermory wrecks with Divers Den, there is also fantastic shore diving in Tobermory.
Shore dives
Big tug harbour
Big tug harbour is a great shore dive. Keep in mind I am very biased, as I love all the diving available in Tobermory, but the Big Tugs Harbour is a great spot to dive and maybe even my favourite shore dive to do, as this site can be dove in several different ways. This dive site is not far from the dive shop in town. There is parking which can fill up quickly on weekends and peak season. This is an excellent shore dive site as there is a deck with good seating to allow easy gearing up; compost bathroom facilities are also available. The dive site has several wrecks of tugs that sank a long time ago, and there is one reasonably intact wreck at this site called the Alice G.
This site can be dove in a few different ways depending on whether you want a shallow, easy, or deeper dive with lots of buoyancy control. I’ll share three ways I suggest on diving this site, and you can choose which one works for you or, better yet, dive it a few times and see what you like. All the shipwreck at this site sits in about 18-25 ft of water.
1st way to dive into this site is just to see the wreckage of the approximately three tugs at this site. To do that, enter the water it will be 3-4ft with a slightly rocky but stable bottom to put your find on. If you swim out approximately 50 feet from the stairs and then swim to your left, you will start to see all the broken-up wood that makes up the wreckage. The wrecks are quite broken up. One can barely make out the decking, but you can see ankers and dead eyes and several other artifacts of the wrecks. There is also a lot of debris like tires and other things that keep your eyes peeled as you may catch a glimpse of some trout. You can spend 20-40 mins on seeing the area as one dive.
2nd way to dive this site is to just see the wreckage of the Alice G, which sits at about 20 ft of water. The easy way to see this wreck is to again go down the stairs, put on your find and swim out approximately 50 ft and this time swim to the right and stay in about 20 ft of water. You will see a steel boat ramp from one of the cottages under the water, then a small black drinking water pipe if you see those, you are going to come right up on the Alice G wreck. This wreck still has some stern decking in tacked with a small swim through, and there is a boiler still there with the smokestack. This is an excellent wreck for photo opportunities as the water is shallow with good visibility creating great lighting. This is a fun and shallow way to dive the Alice G
The 3rd way to dive this site is to visit the Alice G instead of swimming out 50 ft then swimming to the right and staying in approximately 20 ft of water. I suggest swimming straight out the water will go from 4 ft to 25 ft, then there is a wall, and it drops down 60-65 feet onto a sandy bottom. As you descend, observe the wall as there will be wildlife on it (crayfish gobies, zebra mussels, small fish), then swim to the right following the wall for approximately 10-15 min or until you see a large beam or mast falling off of the rock wall at about 40-50 feet. Follow this log/beam as you ascend the wall. Be mindful to look under the overhangs as you may get rare sightings of freshwater sponges or schools of freshwater shrimp. Please do not disturb the sponges as they are very rare and sensitive if you see them. A simple wrong finning technique can spoil a decade of growth. Once you ascend on the log, Alice G should be insight to explore. I prefer to dive the Allie G this way as it’s a lot more fun making the free-fall descent once you get to the wall and then adjust the ascend from 60ft to 20ft to see the wreck and then do it all over get back to the exit site. For added adventure, do this dive when the Chichimun Ferry is coming into port, you will feel its side thrusters if you are on the bottom for some added experiences.
Lighthouse
This is also a great dive, and the lighthouse has parking and access to a compost toilet. There may be space to gear up at the water’s edge, just be mindful that there are many people in the area sun tanning and sightseeing. When you arrive at the lighthouse, I suggest walking along the water’s edge and planning where you want to enter the water. That way, you will know how far you will walk when you gear up at your car. The lighthouse dive can be anywhere from a 45 ft-75 ft dive, depending on how you choose to do it. If you enter the water on the Big Tug bayside, the bottom will be approximately 45 feet. There will be a rock pile and an overhang which is beautiful to see all the rock formations which lead to a sandy bottom. You can dive the bottom of the bay. There are grasses along the bottom, and you can often find bass, trout and a few walleye in the late fall. As you swim around the lighthouse away from the bay, the bottom will drop to 75ft. This dive is a very relaxing dive where you can appreciate the geological formations and what looks like the continuation of the escarpment that forms the Bruce Peninsula.
Little Cove
This site, is located outside of Tobermory and is outside the fathom five Marine park boundaries. The actual dive site is located down a dirt road and down a very steep rocky hill. I would say approach the hill with caution. More than one vehicle has gone down the hill and needed help coming back up. But once at the water’s edge located on a rocky beach and you enter the water, you will have crystal clear water. The dive doesn’t break 30-35 feet, and you can glide around massive boulders and look at all the rock formations. It’s a delightful dive.
Places to eat
We all know diving can work up a real appetite, and Tobermory has what you need. There are several fish and chip shops. I recommend Shipwreck Lee’s. This is an open patio setting with waiters dressed like buccaneers. For the whole maritime experience, they offer all-you-can-eat fish and chip options.
The Crows Nest is a staple when visiting Tobermory with quality pub fare, friendly staff, lots of seating and efficient service. I don’t think you can go wrong with the crow’s nest for a quick launch or a relaxed dinner on the rooftop patios overlooking the harbour.
The Tobermory brewing company is a welcome addition to Tobermory, providing some delicious brews brewed on sites. They also provide and slightly more upscale dining experience. I would recommend trying pan-seared trout, one of my go-to when I visit.
Finally, a Foodland Grocery store is a stone’s throw from the dive shop right in town. This is great to pick up some snacks and water before the dive charter if you plan on picnicking. I’ll let you in on a little secret the deli counter in the grocery store will make a mean deli sandwich on your choice of bun and all the fixing for just over 5 dollars. This can quench the hunger when out on a charter or planning a hicking.
In the last years there have opened up a few new restaurants in the area that I haven’t had the opportunity to try, but i am looking forward to trying them they are:
Tacomory a taco food truck and Coconut Joe’s Harbour Bar and Grill seem to have menus I need to explore.
Visiting with a dive shop
you can see Tobermory on your own as a family or a dive group. If you do that, you will have to; find lodging, plan the dive site you want to dive, plan your meals. And hopefully, this article has given you some helpful information if you plan on visiting Tobermory on your own. That is not the only way to visit Tobermory to experience all the great diving. One way I would suggest is that going with a dive shop may be a good option if you’re from out of town or looking for a more carefree experience on your dive trip to Tobermory. Many local dive shops plan weekend trips to Tobermory. Often the price will include dive charters’ lodging and food. You just have to pay for your air fills and other incidental expenses.
I often have done this using Dan Dive Shop. They provide a great, fun experience on their biannual Tobermory trip called Tobermory extravaganza. It is absolutely a great time going with this shop. They like to have a good time, but, more importantly, they love to dive with morning and night diving typically planned along with the two tank charter dives. In addition, one of the cottages they rent out has some fun diving right off the dock behind the cottage. So if you have never dived Tobermory and you’re looking to make it easiest for yourself in terms of planning, I would say going with a dive shop is well worth it.
Well, once you have done some great diving and experienced the cool fresh water of Georgian Bay, you may want to do some non-dive-related activities, well, you won’t be disappointed in Tobermory.
There is plenty of picturesque hiking on the Bruce peninsula. I recommend visiting the Bruce information center for maps and a little direction from the park rangers on where you should start your hicking. There are also several places to rent kayaks to tour around the islands. Maybe planning a picnic on one of them is an excellent way to unwind.
Something to definitely check out is Little Cove Adventure park’s rope-climbing course. I personally haven’t tried it yet but some of my dive buddies rave about it so it must be something fun to do.
I hope this article has given you a little direction on how to plan a dive trip to Tobermory whether you’re coming with your family, a small group or a large dive team, Tobermory’s diving won’t let you down.