The crystal clear waters surrounding the Bruce Peninsula offer some of the best diving experiences in North America. Located at the tip of the peninsula is Canada’s first National Marine Park – Fathom Five. Within its boundaries and beneath the waters of Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, lie some of Canada’s oldest and best preserved shipwrecks, many dating back to the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.

The 20 or so historical wrecks within the Park offer a wide variety of underwater experiences for all levels of diving qualification from beginner to advanced and technical.

A much more recent shipwreck is the Niagara II, a 183 ft ex-Great Lakes freighter purposefully sunk in May 1999 by the Tobermory Maritime Association as part of their initial phase of an ongoing program to attract new and repeat divers from all over North America and Europe.

This totally intact wreck lies with its keel at a depth of 100 ft in an upright position in a tranquil bay named “Little Cove” off the northeastern end the Bruce Peninsula. Its wheelhouse lies only 45 ft below the surface with its seagoing and navigational equipment including the ship’s wheel still in place. This wreck has it all and offers divers with different levels of experience from advanced to technical one of the most exciting wreck diving experiences in all of the Great Lakes.

For those divers interested in the area’s underwater flora, fauna and spectacular geological formations, beneath the surface they will find underwater caves, rocky overhangs, ancient corals formed in this once primordial tropical sea, crawfish, bass and the occasional marauding salmon looking for its chubb dinner.

The harbour village of Tobermory at the very tip of the Bruce Peninsula is the hub for this diving mecca. All facilities for the diving enthusiast are located there – dive shops, dive charter boats, glass bottom and sightseeing vessels as well as the Park’s Diver Registration Centre.

Excellent search and rescue assistance through the Canadian Coast Guard station and a hyperbaric dive chamber at the medical clinic make the area one of the safest places to train and dive in North America.

These are some of the reasons that the area won top honors in a recent survey conducted amongst the readers of one of North America’s most widely read diving magazines. * So come and dive the best North America has to offer.