This is the same Bear Cove that I went to last time I was here over a year ago. I didn't notice last time, but now there's a gravel parking lot and a sign calling this place "Lookoff Park". I don't think it's a city park, but part of a subdivision called "The Breakers". The trail down to the beach wasn't that long, but it was covered with ice in places and very slippery. It was a nice, calm day so it was fairly easy to get in the water. Unfortunately, visibility was only around 10 feet with some areas even worse. I didn't think I would find the wreckage that I saw last time I was here with local diver Dave, but I tried swimming in the same direction and eventually found a portion of it on the flat sand at the base of the slope at around 60 feet deep. I don't know if it was the same piece we saw last time, but it was a section of large beams held together with copper bolts and lying flat on the sand. I'd guess it was around 15-20 feet wide and maybe 30-40 feet long. I was hard to tell in the limited visibility. There are supposed to be other, similar portions of wreckage in the area as well, but I didn't feel like swimming around getting lost looking for them. There are different ideas about where the wreckage came from. A couple people told me it was from one of two schooners that wrecked at Bear Cove in the late 1800's. Some local websites say that this is wreckage from the USMS Humboldt, a paddle steamer that ran into the shore near Portuguese Cove in the mid-1800's. In the Halifax Maritime Museum, there is a display on the Humboldt with an underwater photo of some wreckage that looks exactly like the wreckage in Bear Cove. I tried coming back here a few times after this dive, but the swell was up, making it too difficult to get in the water with a fragile camera.
