Tobermory

I had to explain to my travel agent there was more to life than scuba diving. I wanted to experience more of the world than just an isolated panoramic view of the ocean. It’s not that I didn’t like dive vacations. I did. What I liked most about them was the new friends made, the guaranteed camaraderie. There’s just so much more to see and do in the world, and I wanted to see and do some of it.

I didn’t stop diving. Henri and I still dove. But there was precious little variety in diving Northern Ontario kettle lakes. They’re cold, they’re deep, they’re black. We even went so far as to do a few road trips to Tobermory to dive Fathom Five National Park.

The first year we went, we did so without making any plans. That was stupid of us, but we were young and hadn’t really travelled about Ontario much then. We had no idea that Tobermory was a popular tourist destination.

We drove right round Georgian Bay, coasting through Wasaga, Collingwood and the Blue Mountains in the dead of night, booking into the Pinecrest Motel in Owen Sound around midnight. It wasn’t much to look at, but at that hour we weren’t much concerned with ambiance. We ought to have been. It was in need of restoration. It was in need of beds without sheets of plywood under its mattresses. I survived. This is not to say that I slept. I was so tired when we rose that Henri drove the final leg up the Bruce Peninsula.

We rolled into Tobermory without a reservation, without even a clue as to its layout. We drove straight through town, finally pulling into the Bruce Anchor Motel, right on Lake Huron. We were lucky to have found a room. We registered, threw our bags into our room, and drove back to the harbour, finding ourselves in front of GS Watersports, reading their plank of upcoming dives, finally inquiring within. We were in luck. There was a boat available. We could go right then if we liked. We signed up for a two-wreck cruise, the first dive deep, rated advanced, the second shallow and easy. We took advanced to mean requiring our having taken the advanced diver’s certification. We were wrong.

The first dive was way too difficult, considering the state I was in. Firstly, the conditions were not ideal. It was windy out on the lake, the water choppy. Secondly, the dive was way too difficult for my experience at the time (I hadn’t dove the Great Barrier Reef as of yet). The first wreck was deep, sunk in a narrow channel ripping with current. And we had no idea how cold the Great Lakes were.

We dropped over the gunnel, fought our way to the anchor line. As I said, the current was strong. We dropped below the surface, following the line. We should have gripped the line and repelled down it, but we wanted to impress ourselves with our skill, so we didn’t. We followed it. Or tried to. I never saw the line, not once. Sediment flowed past my mask, dimming the already darkened, overcast depths. Already exhausted from lack of sleep, I grew even more so fighting the current. I was cooking in my wetsuit, despite the water’s icy embrace.

I nudged Henri. I shrugged. Where the hell are we, I was asking. I gestured that I was heading for surface. Just as I was ascending, Henri spotted the silhouette of the wreck. He kicked hard, harder than he originally thought necessary to gain the wreck, and barely laid fingers on it before being torn off it. Then he too ascended.

I looked for Henri when I broke surface. I grew anxious when I didn’t see him right away.
Where the hell was he? I wondered. Did the current carry him off? I ducked my head below the surface and still couldn’t see him, but by that time, I really didn’t know where the wreck was anymore, or where to look. When he did surface, he asked me what happened.

“I lost all strength,” I said. “I couldn’t do it anymore.

I still had to fight my way back along the hull of the boat to the ladder. Henri climbed aboard first. Then me.

I was so wiped out I puked over the side of the boat. I told Henri I couldn’t do the second dive. Then I told the Captain. We spent the rest of the day getting the lay of the land, finally settling into the Crow’s Nest Pub.

I fared better the next day. It was sunny. The wind had died down. We asked about and booked dives that had a far lesser difficulty rating. There were more divers. It turns out that most divers stayed away the day before, owing to the conditions. We also noted that most wore dry suits. Thankfully it was the last weekend of August, when the water is “warmer” than usual; had it not been, our “arctic” wetsuits would have been unequal to the task and we’d have locked up with the cold down there. As it was, we came off alright, looked cool, gained some much-needed experience. We considered investing in dry suits. We never did, but we considered it.

The lake had calmed to glass after our second dive on our second cruise. Our voices echoed off the high rocky escarpment. We felt great. It was the first moment I thought Lake Huron looked beautiful.
We vowed to return, and we did.

We were better prepared for our second trip. We returned in September when the water was “warmer” still. We were there even longer, that time, granting us the time to explore the town a little more, the luxury of leisure. We stayed up the peninsula at the Tobermory Inn and Suites, actually booking ahead that time. It looked alright when we booked it. It looked a little worse for wear when he booked in. Every nook and cranny grew spider webs. It was a little damp. But once we aired it out, it was fine. It also reminded us of residence: someone pulled the fire alarm on our first night there. I woke to its fire bell clamber, having fully travelled back in time: it was the weekend; Res; someone got drunk and pulled the alarm for shits and giggles again.

“Who the hell pulled the alarm this time?” I wondered before realizing where and when I was.
When I mentioned that to Henri, waiting out the fire department in the parking lot, he laughed. “Me too!” he said. Funny, we thought aloud, nobody looked drunk.

We took the time to relax on terraces, soaking up the sun, soaking up a beer of two with baskets of fish and chips. We marvelled at the yachts moored in the marina, some declaring as far as Florida as their port of registry. Some were sailed, some even sorting a couple masts. Once or twice we spied yachts that dwarfed our houses, big enough to sport crew and security, Mrs. Evinrude’s, for instance. We weren’t allowed anywhere near those.

We finished up our second trip in Tubby’s Lounge, playing pool with a local dude. He was a sight to see, cowboy hat, starched white shirt and jeans, trim beard, hair cascading over his shoulders. He had a foot-long Bowie knife and a carnation sticking out of his back pocket. He claimed to have been born on Flowerpot Island, as though that made any difference to us.

Flowerpot treated us with contempt at first, tourists having invaded his homeland. Which we were. He kicked our asses at pool, kicking us off the table. But despite his obvious contempt, he hung around. And around. And around. He warmed up to us over time, even asking Henri to partner up with him on the pool table against all-comers.

I lost interest in him and in playing pool after a few beers, preferring to hang out with the other divers who shuffled in shortly after us

But Flowerpot wanted to play pool. With everyone. Henri finally threw a game, hammering an easy 8-ball so hard it flew off the table. “Enough pool,” he told Flowerpot after that, “I’m too drunk to play anymore.”

Henri’s having hung out with Flowerpot panned out, though.

Flowerpot manned the ticket booth for the MS Chi-Cheemaun, and he only billed us the minimum allowable. For one crossing we were two seniors in a compact.