Browsing: Wreck Diving Ontario

This is a two masked wooden schooner built (estimate) in the 1800’s. Length of this shipwreck is 94 feet and is located in 110 feet of water. Located in Lake Ontario, the Tiller’s position is approximately 6 km north of Port Dalhousie. The wreck sits upright.

Scuba divers love to explore shipwrecks. But they must do it without touching the wreck. Wooden hulls can be can be easily damaged after lying at the bottom of the St. Lawrence River. “Wood underwater for 200 years is more like sponge,” says Tom Scott, a scuba diver and a member of a volunteer organization called Save Ontario  Shipwrecks.

Perhaps fact or legend,we too have a local Oshawa story of a buried Army Chest reported to be 37,000 pounds sterling or $100,000. At a distance of two miles to the west of Oshawa’s present day harbour is Stone’s Cove and Roger’s beach, During the war when Lake Ontario had a higher elevation instead of the current marsh and a creek, it was an area open to seafaring.

The Kinghorn, a barge carrying a cargo of wheat to Montreal, sank on April 27, 1897 during a storm on the St. Lawrence River. While 120 years have passed since the sinking it remains an accessible dive site. It is resting in 90 feet of water in front of the Rockport, Ontario dock. The wreck is 400 feet from shore. The Kinghorn, along with six other barges, were being towed by a tug named the Hiram Walker.