Temple Hall Wreck

The Temple Hall Wreck is one of Lanzarote's finest advanced dive sites — a British cargo steamer that sank off the island's northeast coast in 1918, resting at depth in remarkable preservation after more than a century on the seabed, its steel hull and superstructure colonised by the encrusting marine community that has transformed it from sunken vessel into one of the most biologically rich artificial reef environments in the Canary Islands. The SS Temple Hall was a British cargo vessel that met its end in Lanzarote's waters during the First World War period, its resting place on the northeast seabed making it accessible to divers willing to make the boat journey to this section of the island's less-visited coast. The wreck rests at a depth that makes it firmly advanced territory — typically in the twenty-five to thirty-five metre range — requiring solid air management and familiarity with decompression exposure to explore effectively within recreational limits. The wreck's age and the clarity of Lanzarote's Atlantic waters combine to create extraordinary conditions for wreck exploration. A century of biological colonisation has produced a marine community of exceptional density on the Temple Hall's surfaces: sponge colonies covering the hull plating in vivid colours, large sea fans extending from the deck fittings in gorgonian fans, and the accumulated invertebrate life that builds over generations of undisturbed growth in productive water. The structure itself — identifiable as a cargo steamer of the early twentieth century era, with its characteristic superstructure profile — provides both the historical narrative and the architectural framework for the biological spectacle. Large moray eels inhabit the enclosed sections of the wreck, grouper patrol the deck area with territorial confidence, and the schooling fish that use the structure as an orientation point circle in dense formations above the superstructure. Eagle rays have been reported patrolling the open water adjacent to the wreck. The Temple Hall is Lanzarote's most historically significant wreck dive and one of its most rewarding advanced marine experiences.