The Sagami Maru - Gulf Of Davao

Around the year 2005, stories began circulating of a relatively unknown Japanese war wreck being dived just outside of Davao City, in the far south of the Philippines. Curiosity aroused, I poked my nose into this a little further and came across this story of the Sagami Maru, as told by Carlos Munda—an instructor and well-informed member of the Mindanao diving community.

Here was a large Japanese freighter, sunk by the incredibly bold actions of the U.S. submarine Seawolf. Deep, but close to shore, and near a large city with good infrastructure—it ticked a lot of boxes.

At that time, Tech Asia was also part of a company called Underwater Exploration Productions (UEP), something we'd formed with the intent of filming for television broadcast. This turned out to be a far harder endeavor than we imagined and ultimately went nowhere. But at the time, coupled with divers’ curiosity, it triggered us to organize a trip to Davao.

This took place in December 2006. Gas was shipped ahead and traveling with Dave were Martin Lorenzo, Yoon Ho Song, and Steve Cox. Our local host dive shop, Wind and Wave Davao, displayed tremendous hospitality and trust in us—making no fuss about four guys dumping 200 kg of gear in their shop, taking over their blending facility, and reconfiguring all their nitrox tanks into twin sets and deco bottles for the weekend.

The dives were very good. This 7,000-tonne freighter sat upright with all her kingposts still standing and thus looked very picturesque, even in the murky water conditions. Reached at a little over 40 m, local accounts had put the maximum depth of the wreck as deep as 90 m. This must have been an estimate by somebody sitting on the deck and peering over the side of the huge hull—probably taking a narcosis-fueled guess—because her actual deepest point turned out to be a more manageable 73 m at the stern on the seabed.

The superstructure was relatively open, though not without hazards: dangling cables and wires, tight confines, and, particularly in the engine and machine rooms, extreme percolation from bubbles—as likely nobody had ever been in there before. A great deal of care was needed to dive safely. The conditions weren’t well suited to filming, but they were fun nonetheless.

With the pioneering trip done and some extra helium stored at Wind and Wave, Sam Collett led two more groups to the wreck over 2007 and 2008. Interestingly, he also encountered local divers on the site every morning—wily old Mario and his boys from the village on the shore of Talomo Bay, where the ship lies. Down they would go, on single tanks of probably not very clean air, with wooden fins, ripped-out wetsuits, and leaky regulators, for a 12-minute dive at 60 m or thereabouts. Just long enough in the gloom to find a few kilos of loose steel and winch it up.

This low-scale salvage seemed to have very little impact on a 7,000-tonne vessel, and nothing really looked any different from 2006 to 2008.

Everyone enjoyed both general tours of the ship and poking around the engine and machine rooms—trying to find ways through to the cargo holds, and looking for torpedo damage. The dive site itself has a dramatic backdrop: the cloud-capped peak of Mt. Apo, the Philippines’ tallest mountain, looming large over Talomo Bay.

For the first time here, I found my mind wandering back—thinking about what it must have been like in 1942, the day the torpedoes from USS Seawolf found their mark and sent Sagami Maru to the seabed. Seawolf had already sunk the Gifu Maru in more open water around the mouth of the Gulf of Davao. But the bravery of those submariners—to come so far into the heart of Japanese-occupied territory and attack major shipping this close to shore installations—is something I find hard to imagine.

This sense of history and past events that so many of Southeast Asia’s shipwrecks evoke in the mind’s eye of a diver is one of the strongest things motivating us to technical dive. Visiting such places is a privilege.

The dive trips here were a very worthwhile experience. We had a ship with a compelling history (see Carlos’ link if you haven’t already), deep and tricky enough to be a proper diving challenge, paired with an outstandingly well-run and friendly host dive shop. All this, just minutes from a comfortable, well-developed international gateway city full of great restaurants.

Not long after this, our overseas ventures to Sri Lanka and the Java Sea tended to steal the limelight, and Sagami Maru faded into the background. But it would be nice to think about a return.

A sad footnote to all of this is that a week after our last trip, there was an explosion on the surface over the wreck involving Mario and his men. Several were killed or seriously hurt. What exactly happened has never been known to me. It’s speculated that they pulled up old ordnance from the wreck, or recovered something pressurized that gave way—possibly even one of their own old scuba tanks failed. Who knows.

For sure, it highlights the terrible risks some people have to take to earn a living in this country. We ourselves are just fortunate it didn’t happen when they were tied off at the back of our dive boat.

Photos above are a shot of the camouflaged Sagami Maru at anchor - through the periscope of the USS Seawolf just as she fired her torpedoes, and a picture of her during peace time with a few notes appended of what we saw on the dives.