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11 amazing attractions that can only be seen underwater

Grab your scuba gear, because you can’t see these incredible places on land.

03/06/12 19,531 Views 14 Comments
Jason deCaires Taylor sculptures in Mexico
Jason deCaires Taylor sculptures in Mexico
Image: Wikimedia Commons

INSTEAD OF NAVIGATING overcrowded Pompeii, why not explore another intriguing ancient city — resting just five to 15 feet underwater off Naples.

You’ll be snorkelling past eerily beautiful mosaic-floored villas at Italy’s Parco Archeologico Sommerso di Baia in no time.

We’re just beginning to appreciate the depth of the ocean’s wonders, as demonstrated by film director James Cameron’s recent seven-mile free fall to the lowest point of the Mariana Trench, roughly 50 times the size of the Grand Canyon.

Then there is Guinness’s latest stunt – turning a submarine into a deep sea bar.

You might surprised by how much we already have to gawk at below the waves. The coolest underwater attractions include ancient ruins, World War II shipwrecks, art, and kitsch – and you don’t necessarily need to be a scuba diver to enjoy them.

Here, we’re highlighting the surprising array of man-made attractions under the sea that don’t depend on Mother Nature (unless you count an earthquake or two).

Take the plunge now to explore these cool underwater attractions—it’s a brave new world down there…

11 amazing attractions that can only be seen underwater
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  • 1. Museo Subacuatico de Arte, Cancún, Mexico

    British artist Jason deCaires Taylor’s under-the-sea museum features more than 400 pieces moulded from pH-neutral concrete and sunk in Cancún’s National Marine Park off Isla Mujeres. Corals and sea life will gradually stake a claim on the figures, transforming them into living reefs to surreal effect. Image: Jason Decaires Taylor, Wikipedia

  • 2. Parco Archeologico Sommerso di Baia, Pozzuli, Italy

    Thanks to bradyseism -the gradual raising or lowering of earth due to filling magma chambers - Baia, 30 minutes west of Naples, now rests in about five to 15 feet of water. Guided tours for both snorkelers and divers cover eight underwater (and four terrestrial) sites like Villa Protiro and Portus Julius. Still from Fabioazzurro on Youtube

  • 3. Truk Lagoon, Micronesia

    Truk (aka Chuuk) was the forward stronghold of Japan’s Imperial Navy during World War II before it was bombed in February 1944. The coral-encrusted ghost fleet litters the sandy floor at an average depth of 65 feet. The lagoon’s calm waters host reef sharks and a rainbow of fish, as seemingly in paradise as the divers photographing rusted artillery tanks aboard the San Francisco Maru and the shattered hulk of the I-169 Shinohara submarine. From Aquaimages, Wikipedia

  • 4. Neptune Memorial Reef, Key Biscayne, Florida

    The Neptune Society has taken burial at sea to a monumental level with what will ultimately be the world’s largest man-made reef: 16 acres sprawled under 50 feet of water about three miles east of Key Biscayne, near South Beach. Modelled after Atlantis, with stone lions guarding an entrance canopy and porticos, the reef has space in its first phase for 850 “placements” -cremated remains mixed with concrete and put into niches or moulded into shell and coral shapes on the sea floor. Elkman on Flickr

  • 5. Port Royal, Jamaica

    It wasn’t rum or syphilitic excess that undid the 17th-century Caribbean’s notorious hotbed of piracy and privateering, so dubbed “the Wickedest City on Earth.” It was bad urban planning. Port Royal was built on a sand spit, and when an earthquake struck on June 7 1692, liquefaction caused 33 acres, streets and all, to sink. Today, consult dive shops for permits to explore paving stones, parts of the former city wall, and nearby wrecks. US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jayme Pastoric/Released

  • 6. Yonaguni Monument, Okinawa, Japan

    A sport diver tracking hammerhead sharks in 1987 discovered a megalithic temple 82 feet under the East China Sea: solid rock slabs, carved with near right angles in a stepped pyramidal structure; ancient walls and water channels; stone tools and carvings. Or did he? Japanese scientists proclaimed it the Lost Continent of Mu. Dissenters chalked it up as a unique, though natural phenomenon. What’s not up for geological debate: the flights of fantasy you get from diving here. Jpatokal, Wikipedia

  • 7. Underwater Post Office, Vanuata

    At the world’s first underwater post office, 150 feet out and nine feet down off marine sanctuary Hideaway Island, it’s not slow-moving lines of humans you have to contend with but schools of shimmering fish. Cyclone Jasmine damaged the structure in February 2012, so for now scuba-gear-clad mailmen have been replaced by an unmanned yellow post box; about gets you a waterproof postcard mailed anywhere in the world. Vanuatupost.vu

  • 8. Weeki Wachee Mermaid Show, Spring Hill, Florida

    Fed by the massive Weeki Wachee Springs, the Mermaid Show Theater an hour north of Tampa is an aquatic cousin to the terrestrial tackiness of road-trip classics like South Dakota’s Corn Palace and Route 66’s dusty concrete dinosaurs. In the right mood, its old-time charm and balletic prowess is enchanting nostalgia, an act largely unchanged since pretty girls first donned fabric tails in 1947. a nameless yeast on Flickr

  • 9. Florida Keys Shipwreck Trail

    Stretching 120 miles from Key Largo to Key West, this aggressive artificial reef program supplements the area’s shallow, fish-filled reefs and wrecks of early 1700s Spanish galleons. North of Key Largo, near Miami, The Spirit of Miami - an entire Boeing 727 jetliner sunk in Biscayne Bay in 1993 - was subsequently lost during a tropical storm and rediscovered in multiple pieces in 2010. NOAA Photo Library on Flickr

  • 10. Vaersenbaai Car Piles, Curacao

    Divers know the candy-coloured island of Curaçao for the Marine Park all along its southern coast, offering easy shore dives and snorkeling, sheer drop-offs, and coral bays. There are wrecks for beginners (a cutesy tugboat) and, for the more technically skilled, car piles roughly 90 feet down. alfonsator on Flickr

  • 11. Pharos Lighthouse and Cleopatra's Palace, Alexandria, Egypt

    Although plans for an underwater museum seem to have sunk, divers can still peer through the murky shallows of Alexandria’s Eastern Harbor (about 15–20 feet deep) to glimpse wonders from the ancient world, including 56-ton massive granite blocks believed to be from the Pharos Lighthouse. Treasures from Cleopatra’s royal boudoir, destroyed in earthquakes and tsunami in AD 365, include headless sphinx, carved parts of a broken sarcophagus, and plenty of amphora. Wikipedia

Read: Guinness turns submarine into deep-sea bar>

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