Greece’s first underwater museum opens extinct world to dive vacationers

Emerging from the crystal-determined turquoise waters of the Aegean Sea, Hans-Juergen Fercher has magnificent returned from his fourth dive to the put mounds of two,500-one year-extinct wine pots set aside the living of an extinct shipwreck—and Greece’s first underwater museum.

“Right here is a aggregate of diving and archaeological diving. Or no longer it is diving into historical previous,” says the 48-one year-extinct psychiatrist after pulling himself onto the deck of the Triton dive boat.

“It makes it particular and uncommon.”

The museum under the waves at Peristera, a rocky outcrop off the island of Alonissos, opened in 2020, though the living has been largely mothballed except now as a consequence of Covid-19 restrictions.

As Greece opens up its a may want to gain tourism exchange, the living offers an instance of a singular and more sustainable earnings.

Divers fancy Fercher and Danish wine-cellar maker, Lisette Fredelund, are appealing to pay 95 euros ($110) a dive—about 50 percent greater than the pricetag of an everyday leisure scuba day day out—for a guided tour of a living once the protect of skilled archaeologists.

“It was once magnificent amazing,” said Fredelund. “I was once magnificent, whereas we were down there, attempting to imagine what it had been fancy being on a vessel transporting wine.”

Extra to reach

Extra wrecks had been set aside within the dwelling—the middle of the nation’s largest marine reserve—holding out the possibility that more such museums will open.

Greece has made diving part of its level of interest to entice company since guidelines handed in 2020 making it capacity to entry such net sites, Tourism Minister Harry Theoharis instructed AFP.

“Right here is a make of tourism that attracts folks all one year spherical, a particular viewers that can pay generously to dive,” he said, adding that 10 unique diving parks are in a position to be licensed under the strategy provided for by the guidelines.

On board the Triton, a crew of six more company don their scuba gear and drop into the sea, intently following their e book. About 300 folks gain paid to ascertain with the shatter for the reason that museum opened, per Alonissos Mayor Petros Vafinis.

Vafinis—himself an avid scuba diver—joined a crew of holiday makers as they one at a time launched themselves off the rear deck of the Triton into the sea.

All company must first undergo a briefing regarding the living and the strict tips—comparable to maintaining no longer lower than two metres (about six toes) a ways from the artifacts.

High expectations

After a transient swim from the boat, the tour e book leads the crew down by changing layers of gentle and lengthening frosty to the sea bed nearly 30 metres under.

“My expectations were definitely excessive from the briefing, and it fulfilled every thing,” said George Giasemidis, a Greek vacationer who visited the dwelling specifically to note the shatter.

As a result of the depth and technical voice of the descent, completely certified divers are allowed to ascertain with the shatter of a ship that was once delivering wine and different items when it foundered, spherical the fifth century BC.

Greater than 4,000 two-handled amphorae are anchored within the sand, their positions marking out the give an explanation for of the wooden vessel, the remains of which had been washed away over time.

“We are attempting to propose any other make of tourism to the folks who reach. I don’t prefer intensive tourism we are in a position to get anyplace else,” Vafinis said.

With four different wrecks stumbled on nearby, the aim is that they’ll in turn change into accessible, adding Alonissos to the must-enact listing for divers spherical the sector.

“It goes to position Alonissos on the sector diving diagram, to gain fancy an underwater safari of extinct wrecks,” said Kostas Efstathiou, co-proprietor of the Triton diving centre.

© 2021 AFP