[1] Its average depth is around two metres, which restricts angling and the use of pleasure craft.
It is a lagoon-like stretch of water known as a bodden, which is typical of this part of the Baltic coastline.
South of the Saaler Bodden is the town of Ribnitz-Damgarten, which is divided into two by the mouth of the 72 kilometre long Recknitz river.
A stream called the Saaler Bach (in its lower reaches known as the Ziegelgraben) discharges into the bodden near Saal.
Two former channels to the Baltic Sea, the Permin and the Loop, silted up in the 14th century.