Alonnisos, Greece: Appearing from a clear turquoise waters from the Aegean Sea, Hans-Juergen Fercher has just returned from his four dive to a 2,500-year-old wine pan mound marking the site of the old Karam ship – and the Greek of the first underwater museum.
“It is a combination of archaeological diving and diving.
It dives into history,” said a 48-year-old psychiatrist after pulling himself to the triton submarine deck.
“It makes it special and unique.” The museum under the waves in the Perista, rocky outcrop of Alonissos Island, opened in 2020, even though the site was mostly splashed until now due to the restrictions of Covid-19.
Because Greece opens a vital tourism industry, this site offers examples of new and more sustainable income sources.
Divers such as Fercher and Danish wine makers, Lisette Fredelund, are willing to pay 95 euros ($ 110) dive – around 50 percent more than the cost of regular recreational scuba sightseeing – for a guided tour on a site preserving professional archaeologists.
“It’s amazing,” Fredelund said.
“I just had, while we were there, trying to imagine how it was to be on a ship carrying wine.” More shipwrecks have been found in the area – the largest sea reserves in the country – stretch out the prospect that more museums will open.
Greece has made the diving part of the focus to attract visitors because the law passed by 2020 allows to access these sites, Harry Theoharis tourism minister to AFP.
“This is a type of tourism that attracts people throughout the year, a special audience that pays generously to dive,” he said, adding that 10 new dive parks were ready to be licensed with legislation.
On the Triton board, a group of six more visitors who wear their scuba equipment and plunge into the sea, follow their guidelines.
About 300 people have paid to visit the vessel since the museum opened, according to Alonissos Mayor Petros Vafinis.
Vafinis – Himself a diligent scuba diver – join a group of tourists because they are one by one launching themselves from the rear deck of Triton to the sea.
All visitors must first undergo direction about sites and strict rules – such as keeping at least two meters (about six feet) away from artifacts.
After swimming for a while from the boat, the tour guide led the group through changes in the light layer and increased coldly to the sea bed almost 30 meters below.
“My hope is very high from the briefing, and it meets everything,” said George Giasemidis, a Greek tourist who visited the area specifically to see the wreck.
Because of the depth and technical difficulties of offspring, only qualified divers are allowed to visit the wreck that gives wine and other items when he was found, around the fifth century BC.
More than 4,000 amphorae two are handled docked in the sand, their position marks the outline of wooden ships, remnants that have been abolished from time to time.
“We want to propose other tourism to the people who come.
I don’t want intensive tourism, we can find another place,” Vafinis said.
With four other wrecks found nearby, the goal is that they in turn will be accessible, add Alonissos to a list that must be done for divers throughout the world.
“It goes to put Alonissos on the world diving map, to have such an underwater safaris from ancient wreck,” said Kostas Efstathiou, co-owner Triton Diving Center.