Dakar & Ngor · Senegal · Wreck
Tacoma wreck
A 1940 cargo wreck at 14 m, a few hundred metres off Gorée Island
Photo: Frederick Milthorp · CC BY-SA 3.0
The Tacoma is Dakar's best-known wreck: a cargo ship lost in 1940 and lying in 13 to 14 m of water a few hundred metres off Gorée Island. It is shallow enough that Oceanium runs it as an Open Water dive, and the hull carries thick vegetation with numerous fish over it, stingrays on the sand, groupers and moray eels in the structure.
Also known as SS Tacoma, MS Tacoma, Epave Tacoma.
Where it is and how deep
14.6710° N, 17.3982° WApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
Site maps published elsewhere
The dive
The run out is short: the wreck lies a few hundred metres off Gorée Island, and Oceanium works it as a standard club dive rather than a special trip. The bottom is at 13 to 14 m, so the whole hull sits inside no-stop time on a single tank, and the club lists Open Water as the requirement — the shallowest and least demanding of the wrecks it names around the peninsula.
What you get is growth and fish rather than structure. The hull carries thick vegetation and numerous fish work across it, with stingrays on the sand around the wreck, groupers holding in the shadow of the plating and moray eels tucked into the gaps. In the green upwelling months the visibility closes in and it becomes a close-range dive worked along the hull; in the clear part of the year you can take the wreck in from a little way off.
Oceanium publishes no plan of the wreck and no penetration route, so dives here run as swim-arounds of the hull rather than anything inside it. The position on the club's own map is a plotted marker rather than a surveyed fix, which is why this page shows an approximate circle instead of a pin — the boat crew know the spot, and the wreck is found from the surface off Gorée.
The wreck
- Vessel
- Tacoma
- Type
- Cargo ship
- Sunk
- 1940
- Cause
- Bombed at Dakar in 1940 — by British forces in error, per the dive club's account; lost during the Battle of Dakar
- Lies
- On the bottom at 13 to 14 m, a few hundred metres off Gorée Island
The Tacoma was carrying barrels of peanut oil when she was lost at Dakar in 1940. Oceanium's account calls her a Swedish cargo ship, bombed by mistake by British forces. Wikipedia's record of the Battle of Dakar — the Allied attempt on the port, Operation Menace, fought from 23 to 25 September 1940 — instead lists a Danish freighter, MS Tacoma, among the Vichy French losses, and does not say what sank her. The two accounts agree on the year and disagree on the ship's flag; nothing published resolves it.
Marine life and season
- Stingrays
- Groupers
- Reef fish swarms
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Good | Good | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Good |
Season follows Dakar & Ngor: Upwelling from about December to May cools water to 17-21°C and dims visibility; October-November is the warm, clear window.
Know before you go
- Dakar's visibility drops sharply in the cool upwelling months; on green days stay in contact with the hull and with your buddy, because the wreck is easy to lose sight of.
Questions divers ask
How deep is the Tacoma wreck in Dakar?+
Oceanium's site page gives 14 m and its dive overview puts the wreck at 13 m, a few hundred metres off Gorée Island. That makes it the shallowest of the club's named Dakar wrecks and the only one it lists as an Open Water dive.
What ship was the Tacoma?+
A cargo ship carrying barrels of peanut oil, lost at Dakar in 1940. The dive club describes her as Swedish and accidentally bombed by British forces; Wikipedia's account of the Battle of Dakar lists a Danish freighter, MS Tacoma, among the Vichy French ships lost in the 23–25 September 1940 attack on the port, without saying what sank her.
Sources
- Nos plongées — Oceanium Diving Center
- Tacoma site page — Oceanium Diving Center
- Battle of Dakar — Wikipedia (en)
Photo credits
- Archival photo of the cargo ship Tacoma burning offshore at Dakar, thick smoke rising from the hull by Frederick Milthorp, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In The Logbook
- Why is some sea green instead of blue?Ocean science · 8 min read
- WWII wrecks you can dive, by theatreWrecks · 7 min read
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