This is the Southern point of Herring Cove. It's also the site of the wreck of the HMS Tribune, a British frigate that sank in the late 1700's after being captured from the French. Only a few of the more than 200 crew survived. Naturally, there isn't much left, but I heard there was a cannon (most of them were dumped near the entrance to Halifax harbour where the ship initially grounded). You don't get many chances to see 18th-century cannons on the West coast so I had to try for it. I parked next to the road just inside Tribune Head and walked down a trail to a rocky beach. The first time I showed up there was a bit of a swell that made surface swimming around the point difficult so I tried going out underwater. Visibility was around 6 feet. I made it half-way there before realising that I wouldn't have enough air with the tanks they rent here (small, low-pressure steels), so I gave up and fought my way back through the surge.
The second time I came here it was dead calm so I swam out on the surface to well around the point before descending. Visibility was around 15 feet and the kelp-covered boulders in the shallows had colourful encrusting sponge on their sides. I swam down to the bottom of the rocky slope at around 50 feet and followed it further around the point. Sure enough, I came across a cannon. That made my day and I tried to find some other signs of the wreck down deeper. I made it down to around 70 feet, but didn't see much except for some small, unrecognizable bits of corroded metal. I wanted to keep going deeper to see if there was any wood left, but I didn't have the air so I turned around. Other than North-West Arm, this was the only place I saw a fish while I was in Halifax. It was a sea raven sculpin sitting on a boulder.
The last time I dove here it was reasonably calm so I did the surface-swim thing again. When I descended, I found the visibility was only 3 feet (I couldn't even see my legs). By the time I was 30 feet deep it was very dark and I couldn't really see anything so I gave up. Maybe the bad visibility is due to the sewage outfall to the South. At the Halifax Maritime museum, there is a display of stuff from this wreck, including the bell and a cannon ball.
