Cyprus underwater museum

[BlueTrin]

Maybe it’s old news but

FIRST LOOK: Underwater Museum Opens in Cyprus

The Museum of Underwater Sculpture Ayia Napa (M.U.S.A.N.), the latest installation of world-famous reef artist Jason deCaires Taylor, opens to the public tomorrow, August 2.

Billed as the world’s first underwater forest, more than 130 figural and botanical sculptures rest across more than 550 feet of sand at a depth of up to 33 feet off the southeastern coast of Cyprus. It is designed to tell a story to visitors, which can be followed if visitors enter from the North end. Built in Pernera, a marine protected area, the site was selected by the government to highlight its protected status.

DeCaries Taylor proposed a forest for the site to play with the concept of “rewilding our oceans,” he says. His new work is “similar to kelp forests… [with] vertical structures that float, and I thought that would be quite interesting for attracting marine life at different levels of the water column.”


All of deCaires Taylor’s work is made of pH neutral cement that facilitates coral growth. He has installed more than 1,000 sculptures around the world, from the Gulf of Mexico to fjords of Norway to the Great Barrier Reef.

"We believe that this is the greatest opportunity we have on the island to raise awareness about the need to protect our marine environment. And to bring people in the water,” especially young people, says Giorgos Bayadas, a fisheries biologist for Cyprus’ Authority for Fisheries and Marine Environment. Bayadas started conversations about the museum with deCaires Taylor in 2017 after viewing the artist’s TED talk.


“I was quite impressed [with the] way he was trying to make use of art, for awareness raising about the marine environment,” says Bayadas. “We are suffering in the Mediterranean [with] overfishing, which is a very big problem.”

“I was quite interested in creating a very dense habitat that maybe could bring some of those fish colonies back,” says deCaires Taylor.

The general public can dive or snorkel M.U.S.A.N. themselves for free at any time. Time slots will be set for dive shops to reserve on a first-come first-serve basis for guided tours in an effort to keep visitor traffic within the site’s carrying capacity. A list of dive operators that operate in the park can be found on the museum’s website.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Not old news. The website Ayia Napa Booking System (musan dot com dot cy) wasn't live in late July.

 

[BlueTrin]

I had my trip to Lanarca cancelled due to Covid last year, maybe I’ll try for 2022

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

My hopes is that this park will be successful and result in a measurable uptick in tourism, so that Greece would finally get rid of its laws against artificial reefs. Building replicas of underwater temples/cities underwater would be expensive, time consuming, and require a fair bit of engineering to ensure they withstood winter storms, but if they did it right, it would be more and more of a draw over time as the sponge would grow on ceilings and plant/sea life get established.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Maybe even coral farms. But that's a long term vision. This image should give people an idea of how long it takes for coral to grow.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Oh, and one of the ideas I have is to work with marine biologists to make dens that are ideal for different sea life (not just octopus, but morays and any other life) within disks that make up the columns. This could be done for any sculpture.

And yes I am posting that in hopes people steal that idea and use it elsewhere.

 

[BlueTrin]

I didn’t know you were involved with coral restoration projects @wetb4igetinthewater

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I'm not. I'm currently working on a filming/laser scanning project that would introduce sub-sea laser scanning to maritime archaeology in Greece with Fabien. I have the support of the AHEPA and the interest of the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities (who manages the protection, excavation and recording of ancient shipwrecks). Just one setback as the senior archaeologiest for the EUA is stepping down for a professor position at the University of Thessaly (where he will start the first maritime archaeology program in Greece, a very good thing) and a replacement has not yet been chosen (it is August when everyone is on vacation in Europe). We plan on filming/scanning the six shipwrecks reported by one sponge diver who I met earlier this month on Kalymnos. These are all unconfirmed, the deepest being 70 meters. So we will get in the area from the sponge diver's memory, then use side scanning sonar to pinpoint the location. That's why I'm getting into rebreathers. We have a tight timeline as the technology for doing this in a cost effective manner (which is why it has never been done before) is still in development, supposedly to market in spring. Our project is in line to get the first unit off their assembly line.

I'm focused just as that, as I'm a nobody, and before I even start discussing other projects, I need this one project to succeed.

Yeah, I'm sticking my head out there posting this, as it could still fail and I look like an idiot (I haven't made friends with everyone on SB, so I'd expect quite the pile-on if I fail), but if I succeed, I'll be able to make a lot more good things happen in Greece.

I'm looking at building the first ancient maritime museum in Greece with a replica of the ship in the middle of the room whose cargo will be on display like antiquities in the Acropolis museum, a glass floor with a 3D model of the scan of the shipwreck cargo that lay on the sea floor (like you see walking into the Acropolis museum), multimedia displays for more information, films, etc... I'm 50. I'm giving myself 4 decades to achieve the museum. The filming project 2 years.

As I achieve more, I can then start to take projects in parallel. It simply isn't practical to think of anything right now other than the first filming/scanning project.

But coral restoration is in the back of my mind. There are a lot of challenges. I just met a Greek professor living in Belgium who did his first PhD on the Calypso and was friends with Fabien's uncle Philip. He was involved with getting the Roman wreck off Alonissos opened up as a dive park decades ago (yes, things move that slow in Greece). I hope he lives a lot longer as he would be instrumental in more good things happen.

 

[BlueTrin]

That’s really amazing.

I think whatever the outcome it will be a great experience and will be a success in this regard.

 

[ElCarlos]

The great attraction of Musan is to make several dives there over time/years and see the evolution of the underwater world from the scratch.

For a single dive it is ok, you can do it because it is something different (even if some find it boring).