Bell Island & Conception Bay · Canada · Wreck
SS Saganaga
Short swim-throughs through steel grown over with anemones
Area photo: Shawn from Airdrie, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.0
The first of the Bell Island ships to go, hit by two torpedoes from U-513 on 5 September 1942 and down in thirty seconds. Most of the diving is between 18 and 26 metres, shallow enough to be exposed to the currents and passing icebergs the deeper wrecks are sheltered from. What is left is open steel, short swim-throughs and a garden of sea anemones.
Where it is and how deep
47.5833° N, 52.9785° WApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
The Saganaga went down in thirty seconds under two torpedoes and the wreck shows it. Most of the diving happens between 18 and 26 metres — 60 to 85 feet in the operator's own figures — which is where the structure is open enough to swim through and where a camera has the most to work with. The steel that has been down since 1942 carries a garden of sea anemones, and that growth is half the reason to be here.
Work it as an exploration rather than a tour. The swim-throughs are the reason to be here, and each one wants a light and a look before you commit to it. Being shallower than the Lord Strathcona, she has had more current and more passing ice over her, so expect a less coherent hull than the deeper pair. The dive runs from a charter out of Sunset Key Marina as one of the two dives on the day.
The wreck
- Vessel
- SS Saganaga
- Type
- Cargo ship
- Sunk
- 1942
- Cause
- Torpedoed by U-513
- Lies
- In Conception Bay off Bell Island, with the dived structure between 18 and 26 m
Saganaga was a cargo ship lying off Bell Island on 5 September 1942 when U-513 came into Conception Bay. She was struck first, with two torpedoes, and sank in thirty seconds; the Lord Strathcona was attacked roughly half an hour later. Accounts of the loss differ — 30 of her 44 crew killed in the Wikipedia record, twenty-nine of the crew reported missing in the operator's. It was the first of the two 1942 attacks that put four ships on the bottom off Bell Island.
Marine life and season
The sources we used don't single out particular species here.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Off-season | Off-season | Off-season | Off-season | Fair | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Fair | Off-season | Off-season |
Season follows Bell Island & Conception Bay: The season runs Jun–Sep; icebergs are best in June, humpbacks arrive with the capelin in July, and winter shuts everything down.
Know before you go
- She sits shallow enough to feel current and to lie in the path of icebergs drifting through the bay — check the day's wind and ice with the charter rather than assuming the site is on.
- The swim-throughs are short but they are still overhead. Run a light, keep the exit in sight, and look a passage over before you commit to it.
Dive videos
Bell Island WW2 Shipwrecks - PART 1 - The S.S. Saganaga · Wreckwatch TV on YouTube
SS Saganaga, Bell Island, October 2011 - exploring the holds · kjaa4456 on YouTube
Questions divers ask
How deep is the SS Saganaga?+
Most of the diving is between 18 and 26 metres, the 60 to 85 feet the operator quotes, which is where the swim-throughs and the anemone growth are. That is inside recreational limits but well past beginner depth in cold water.
Is the Saganaga a good site for photography?+
The operator calls the 60 to 85 foot band — 18 to 26 metres — a paradise for photographers, on the strength of the swim-throughs and the garden of sea anemones over the wreckage.
Sources
- List of shipwrecks in September 1942 — Wikipedia
- Newfoundland Shipwrecks — Ocean Quest Adventures
- Diving to the WWII Shipwreck Sites in Newfoundland — Ocean Quest Adventures
- SS Saganaga (position) — OpenStreetMap
In The Logbook
- Ice diving: how it works and where to goCold water · 12 min read
- Why you get cold diving, even in a wetsuitBody & health · 8 min read
- Cold-water diving: is it worth the drysuit?Cold water · 8 min read
- WWII wrecks you can dive, by theatreWrecks · 7 min read
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