Tobermory day trip: glass-bottom boat to Flowerpot Island, then the Grotto

Tobermory is a small harbor town at the very tip of Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula, about 300 km (186 mi) northwest of downtown Toronto. It sits where Lake Huron meets Georgian Bay, and the water out front is as blue as any sea. Boats leave from town for Flowerpot Island, named for its rock pillars shaped like flowerpots. About 20 minutes' drive south is the Grotto, a cave at the water’s edge.

Tobermory got on our list because a local we met in Quebec said it was a truly beautiful place and urged us to go.

Even so, I went back and forth on this Tobermory day trip until the last minute. It meant more than three hours of driving each way from where we were staying, and I worried my parents would get bored in the car. What settled it was Grotto parking. I checked the reservation site for days, saw a Sunday afternoon slot open up and grabbed it. As it turned out, my parents didn’t mind the drive at all.

01The drive up Highway 6 on the Bruce Peninsula

With a long way to go, we hurried out of our Mississauga rental at 6:50 a.m. Once you clear Toronto, the roads empty out quickly. The route runs past Caledon, through Shelburne and Owen Sound, then up Highway 6 to the end of the peninsula. It’s about 269 km (167 mi) from where we stayed to Tobermory, roughly 3 hours 15 minutes without stops. We stopped in Caledon for breakfast and gas, and it took us just over four hours.

Between Shelburne and Markdale the road runs straight through wide fields. Past Owen Sound, once you’re on the peninsula, cedar forest and small lakes take turns. We pulled into Tobermory around 11 a.m.

We were early for our boat and planned to leave the car in the cruise company’s lot and eat first. Parking comes with the boat fare, but the attendant told us we could only get in closer to departure and to come back later. So we parked briefly in a paid lot near the restaurant and had lunch at Shipwreck Lee’s. The fish was fresh and tender, and our kid in particular ate well. The restaurant is a short walk from the boat dock. As boat time got close, we moved the car to the cruise company’s lot and boarded.

The harbor street is lined with restaurants and shops, and yellow tour boats were loading passengers at the water’s edge. It had a busy tourist-town feel.

02Glass-bottom boat and the Big Tub Harbour shipwrecks

Two companies run boats that drop you off on Flowerpot Island: Bruce Anchor Cruises and Blue Heron Cruises. Both use glass-bottom boats and pass the Big Tub Harbour shipwrecks on the way out. Blue Heron also has a cruise along the coast near the Grotto. I laid out the differences between the two in a table in our five-day Montreal-to-Niagara Falls itinerary.

We went with Bruce Anchor, boarding at their dock in Little Tub Harbour. You walk down wooden stairs set into a rocky slope, and the yellow boat is waiting at the dock. A large glass window is set into the floor in the middle of the boat.

The boat left the harbor and headed west into Big Tub Harbour. At its entrance stands the white Big Tub Lighthouse, built in 1885.

The water off Tobermory is a major shipping channel between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. From the 1850s on, ships loaded with lumber and cargo used it heavily, and with so many hidden reefs and shallow rocks, a number of them broke up in fall storms. That’s why the area has so many wrecks.

The two inside Big Tub Harbour are a slightly different case. One is the Sweepstakes, a two-masted schooner built in 1867. After she was wrecked off nearby Cove Island in 1885, a tug towed her into the harbor, but she couldn’t be repaired and sank where she lay. She’s in about 6 m (20 ft) of water, so the hull is visible almost intact from the surface. Right next to her, in about 5 m (16 ft), lies the City of Grand Rapids, a steam passenger ship that caught fire at the Tobermory dock in 1907 and drifted here. Fire left much less of her.

The water was so clear that the wreck’s frame showed sharply over the side. The boat didn’t stop above the wrecks; it passed over slowly, and most people stayed seated and looked down through the windows. From a window seat you can see well without getting up.

These wooden ships have lasted more than a century because of the water. Warm salt water is full of microorganisms and creatures that eat wood, so an old wooden ship there tends to end up as little more than its metal parts. Those organisms can’t live in the cold, clear fresh water of the Great Lakes, so the wood doesn’t rot easily. In 1987 the waters here became Fathom Five National Marine Park, Canada’s first national marine park, and it holds more than 20 shipwrecks.

03Two hours on Flowerpot Island

Out of Big Tub Harbour, the boat picks up speed into open water. After about 20 minutes the island’s cliffs draw near, and the boat slowly passes the orange rock shoreline and the flowerpots before docking at Beachy Cove. A kayaker was paddling below the cliffs. You get a first look at the flowerpots from the boat before you step off.

A loop trail starts at the Beachy Cove dock, passes the flowerpots, the sea cave and the lighthouse, then circles back through the island’s interior. We went as far as the flowerpots and the cave and returned the same way. Past a forest path and wooden stairs comes the Small Flowerpot, and a bit farther on, the Large Flowerpot. Wind, rain, waves and ice wore at the cliff for a very long time; the softer lower rock broke away first, the harder top was left, and the flowerpot shape is what remained. The rock itself formed from material laid down on the floor of a sea that covered this region long ago.

Partway to the cave there’s a spot where the Large Flowerpot is framed between the trees. We took our picture there too.

Beyond the flowerpots, a steep staircase climbs to a sea cave cut into the rock wall. Waves carved it after the last ice age, when the lake stood much higher than it does today, so it now sits in the forest, well away from the water. A wooden viewing platform stands in front of it.

On the way back, our kid went into the water at a pebble shoreline. Even in July it was very cold, but our kid stayed in and played for a good while. The island has no sand beach, and in places the shoreline drops off suddenly, so it’s best to swim only along the shallow pebble shore. You can change in the restrooms at the Beachy Cove dock.

Resting by the flowerpots, climbing the cave stairs and letting our kid swim for a good while still didn’t leave us short on time. We were back at Beachy Cove for the 3:35 p.m. boat we had picked in advance. The cruise company suggests one hour if you only want photos, two hours to walk to the flowerpots, cave and lighthouse, and three hours if you also want to swim and picnic.

There are also tours that do it as a day trip from Toronto, no driving required.

04Booking Grotto parking

After the 3:35 p.m. boat back, we drove about 20 minutes south to the Cyprus Lake entrance of Bruce Peninsula National Park. The Grotto is on the shore about 1 km (0.6 mi) on foot from the parking lot inside that entrance.

Only cars with a paid reservation can get into the Cyprus Lake parking lot that serves the Grotto. Reservations are sold in four-hour time slots. Once a slot is full, you can’t get in during that window, and dropping people off at the entrance isn’t allowed either. To change your date or slot, you have to cancel and book again. Mid-June to mid-September is busiest, and weekends most of all. Book on the Parks Canada reservation site. Reservations for 2026 opened February 2 at 8 a.m., and you can cancel up to two days before your date.

At the entrance booth they check your reservation and hand you a single-use paper parking pass. After you park and walk to the trailhead, there’s a large illustrated board of the Grotto and a bear figure.

Next to them is a sign noting that this is the land of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation.

05Indian Head Cove and the Grotto

Three trails lead from the trailhead to the shore. We took the easiest, the Georgian Bay Trail, a wide, packed path through cedar forest that passes the shore of Horse Lake partway. It took us a little over 30 minutes to reach the water.

Our walk from the parking lot to the Grotto (red line) and the order of our stops. Lines are simplified and not exact.

Out of the forest you come to Indian Head Cove, emerald water filling the gaps between white rocks. It was a Sunday afternoon, so there were people sitting on every rock and plenty in the water. My wife and our kid went right into the water. Our kid was soaked and laughing.

Go up the cliff on the west side of the cove and the whole bay opens up below. The water was clear enough to see the stones on the bottom.

A little farther along the cliff is the Grotto, a shoreline cave that waves carved out of the base of the cliff. From above you can see the entrance through a gap in the rock; climb down inside and light from the open water shines in across the flooded floor.

Between the Grotto and Indian Head Cove is the Natural Arch, a round hole worn through the rock with water visible underneath. It’s the same arch drawn on the board at the trailhead. We headed back the same way a little after 7 p.m. and drove out of the lot around 7:30 p.m.

There’s more walking around the Grotto. Return on the Marr Lake Trail and you cross a rough stretch of boulder beach; follow the Bruce Trail west and you reach Overhanging Point, where the cliff juts out over the water. The 5 km (3.1 mi) loop around Cyprus Lake is flat. With our kid and my parents along, walking the Georgian Bay Trail in and out and seeing the cove, the Grotto and the arch within our four-hour parking slot was plenty.

06Sunset near Lion’s Head

On the way back we made a short stop in the village of Lion’s Head, a little way off Highway 6 (the L on the Bruce Peninsula map at the top). There’s a small patch of sand and a playground by the harbor, and our kid got some time on the swings.

The sun went down as we drove south. Black cattle grazed in a wide pasture, with the sunset spreading behind them. We stopped in Shelburne for coffee and snacks and got back to our place in Mississauga after midnight.

07Good to know before a Tobermory day trip

• Boat booking Boats that drop you on the island leave a few times a day at set times. We booked online three days ahead, picking one boat out and one boat back, and were at the island dock in time for the return. Island tickets have you choose your return boat, so if you have plans for the afternoon, set your time on the island around them.
• Island admission Landing on Flowerpot Island requires national park admission, usually paid when you book the boat. In 2026, admission was free from June 19 to September 7 with the Canada Strong Pass.
• Grotto parking No reservation, no entry. You have to get in and out within the four-hour window, so pick your slot by taking your return boat time and adding the 20-minute drive plus about 20 minutes for the gate line and parking. If nothing is open, keep checking the reservation site over several days. That’s how we got our Sunday afternoon slot.
• Shoes Both the island and the Grotto are gravel and rock, not sand. If you plan to go in the water, water shoes that cover the whole foot are more comfortable. Water shoes for kids and adults: View on Amazon
• Water The water is very cold, even in July. Bring towels, a change of clothes and a dry bag for the wet things. Dry bags: View on Amazon
• Look, don’t take Inside the national park you can’t disturb or take animals, rocks or shells. Any small creatures you find at the water’s edge stay where they are.
• Day trip or overnight A day trip was enough for us, but if you can find a room in Tobermory, staying a night would probably be more relaxed. You could add the island lighthouse or the Lion’s Head lookout.

The day in short

Our Tobermory day trip was built on two reservations. Midday we took the glass-bottom boat over the Big Tub Harbour shipwrecks and spent a little over two hours walking on Flowerpot Island; in the afternoon we went to Indian Head Cove and the Grotto in the parking slot we’d booked ahead. Not stretching the island stop too long kept the afternoon from feeling rushed. It was the place we’d hesitated over because of the distance, and it turned out to be the day we saw the bluest water of the whole trip. The next day we left Mississauga for Niagara Falls.

Sources: Parks Canada (Fathom Five National Marine Park diving and Flowerpot Island information, Bruce Peninsula National Park parking reservations and trails, visitor rules), Bruce Anchor Cruises (shipwrecks, suggested time on the island), Parks Canada history of Fathom Five, Michigan Public Radio (interview with Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary on freshwater shipwreck preservation)