cleung
Contributor
With the extended summer temps this month, I finally made it up to Tobermory for my first time ever this Thursday. I decided to do a very long day trip rather than stay overnight.
Tobermory
The drive from Mississauga to Tobermory was four hours but was very easy driving over smooth roads all the way up - took highways 403 to 410 to 10 north to 6 north all the way to Tobermory. There are quite a few motels in Tobermory as well as a few along highway 6 on the Bruce Penninsula so I would consider these for a weekend trip with my scuba group next summer. Cheaper hotels are in Wiarton and Owen Sound plus there are more services in those towns as well but it was 1.25 hours drive between Owen Sound and Tobermory so I don't know if we would want to drive back and forth when we do our future weekend trip. There are a several small independent restaurants in Tobermory with no chains in sight which is a breath of fresh air. But there is only one gas station in Tobermory.
I used Diver's Den for this quick trip. The other dive op is G+S Watersports but they never answered my emails so I gave my business to Diver's Den. Both dive ops are right beside the Tobermory harbour. And unlike most international destination dive ops, divers need to take rental tanks and other gear to the dive boat themselves but Diver's Den provides wagon carts for this and the distance is not very far - unlike in Brockville when we had to drive to the dive boats.
I had to pay $4 for the marine park pass since both dive sites for the afternoon were within the marine park. This pass can be purchased at the park office or at Diver's Den. The boat used today was the Bruce Isles which was a fairly adequate dive boat with an indoor cabin with head and back outside area for the dive staging area. My only issue was that the back benches did not have slots for the tanks but there was enough space in the back area for the six divers present with all our gear. The ladder in the back was one where the captain encouraged us to come up with our fins on which was a good thing in my case since my current fins were a bit tight for my new dry suit and I would otherwise have to struggle with both hands to rip off my fins at the ladder.
The Wrecks
Diver's Den runs morning dives to the deeper wrecks which I was told are usually the favourite dives among Tobermory regulars including the Arabia, Forest City and Niagara II. Since I was still new to my dry suit, I wanted to be conservative and stick with more shallow dives for now which their afternoon schedules accommodate. So based on the weather conditions that day, the captain chose to go to the King and Wetmore wrecks.
The King wreck was a really easy dive with access lines right to the wreck itself from the surface. The bow starts at about 20 feet depth. Visibility was okay (I can never estimate visibility distances - all I know is that I was able to see more at Tobermory than during my recent Brockville dives). The King sits on a slope with the stern down deeper. We went down around the stern which my dive computer had at 68 feet. The water temperature at the bow was 68 degrees F and towards the stern, there was a definite thermocline as my computer read 63 degrees. I was fine though with my dry suit, dry suit hood and tropical gloves. I would be better off with cold water gloves which I will buy for next summer. The other dives had rented 7 mm wetsuits and they said they were fine.
The next dive was the Wetmore which was a very shallow wreck at only 20 to 22 feet throughout. The only problem we had with this wreck was that there is no access line to it. We overswam it the first time and went close to the far rocks which was at 6 to 10 feet - we could actually stand on the rocks and poke our heads out of the water to see where we were. When we came back in the right direction, we found the Wetmore and it is actually a nicer wreck with more to see than the King. It is a larger one too with boilers sticking up and a huge anchor found adjacent to the wreck.
Both dive sites had some fish, probably bass or walleye, with lots of little gobies on the bottom. We also saw a few crayfish at the Wetmore.
Next summer, I would really love to dive the Caves site which is also a shallow dive but with interesting swim throughs and rock formations. I would also be up for at least one of the top three deeper wrecks as well. So for our group, I was the test diver to scout out Tobermory and would report that it is definitely a dive destination going to as we will plan a weekend trip (or two) up there next summer.
Tobermory
The drive from Mississauga to Tobermory was four hours but was very easy driving over smooth roads all the way up - took highways 403 to 410 to 10 north to 6 north all the way to Tobermory. There are quite a few motels in Tobermory as well as a few along highway 6 on the Bruce Penninsula so I would consider these for a weekend trip with my scuba group next summer. Cheaper hotels are in Wiarton and Owen Sound plus there are more services in those towns as well but it was 1.25 hours drive between Owen Sound and Tobermory so I don't know if we would want to drive back and forth when we do our future weekend trip. There are a several small independent restaurants in Tobermory with no chains in sight which is a breath of fresh air. But there is only one gas station in Tobermory.
I used Diver's Den for this quick trip. The other dive op is G+S Watersports but they never answered my emails so I gave my business to Diver's Den. Both dive ops are right beside the Tobermory harbour. And unlike most international destination dive ops, divers need to take rental tanks and other gear to the dive boat themselves but Diver's Den provides wagon carts for this and the distance is not very far - unlike in Brockville when we had to drive to the dive boats.
I had to pay $4 for the marine park pass since both dive sites for the afternoon were within the marine park. This pass can be purchased at the park office or at Diver's Den. The boat used today was the Bruce Isles which was a fairly adequate dive boat with an indoor cabin with head and back outside area for the dive staging area. My only issue was that the back benches did not have slots for the tanks but there was enough space in the back area for the six divers present with all our gear. The ladder in the back was one where the captain encouraged us to come up with our fins on which was a good thing in my case since my current fins were a bit tight for my new dry suit and I would otherwise have to struggle with both hands to rip off my fins at the ladder.
The Wrecks
Diver's Den runs morning dives to the deeper wrecks which I was told are usually the favourite dives among Tobermory regulars including the Arabia, Forest City and Niagara II. Since I was still new to my dry suit, I wanted to be conservative and stick with more shallow dives for now which their afternoon schedules accommodate. So based on the weather conditions that day, the captain chose to go to the King and Wetmore wrecks.
The King wreck was a really easy dive with access lines right to the wreck itself from the surface. The bow starts at about 20 feet depth. Visibility was okay (I can never estimate visibility distances - all I know is that I was able to see more at Tobermory than during my recent Brockville dives). The King sits on a slope with the stern down deeper. We went down around the stern which my dive computer had at 68 feet. The water temperature at the bow was 68 degrees F and towards the stern, there was a definite thermocline as my computer read 63 degrees. I was fine though with my dry suit, dry suit hood and tropical gloves. I would be better off with cold water gloves which I will buy for next summer. The other dives had rented 7 mm wetsuits and they said they were fine.
The next dive was the Wetmore which was a very shallow wreck at only 20 to 22 feet throughout. The only problem we had with this wreck was that there is no access line to it. We overswam it the first time and went close to the far rocks which was at 6 to 10 feet - we could actually stand on the rocks and poke our heads out of the water to see where we were. When we came back in the right direction, we found the Wetmore and it is actually a nicer wreck with more to see than the King. It is a larger one too with boilers sticking up and a huge anchor found adjacent to the wreck.
Both dive sites had some fish, probably bass or walleye, with lots of little gobies on the bottom. We also saw a few crayfish at the Wetmore.
Next summer, I would really love to dive the Caves site which is also a shallow dive but with interesting swim throughs and rock formations. I would also be up for at least one of the top three deeper wrecks as well. So for our group, I was the test diver to scout out Tobermory and would report that it is definitely a dive destination going to as we will plan a weekend trip (or two) up there next summer.
