Scuba diving in Mexico’s underwater museum near Isla Mujeres

Annie Ross dives deep and discovers the hidden artefacts in Cancun
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Annie Ross4 July 2017

Since watching a documentary a few years ago on a Mexican underwater museum, I have been keen to visit the MUSA site near Cancun. Designed by British sculptor, Jason deCaires Taylor, the Cancun Nautical Association and the National Marine Park in Mexico, the museum continues to grow - organically and structurally.

MUSA El Museo Subacuático de Arte, also known as The Underwater Museum, is an art project with conservation at its core. The museum aims to provide an attraction, albeit manmade, to redirect tourism away from the natural reefs in the Cancun area, which are suffering from the increasing volumes of visitors.

Viewable by glass bottom boat, snorkelling or scuba diving, it has nearly 500 life-sized sculptures populating the sandy bottom at 3m to 10m underwater. Off the shore of Isla Mujeres near Cancun, the sculptures include humans, bombs, a car, a house and a sofa, are constructed of synthetic material advantageous to coral growth, with the aim of facilitating a reef structure for marine life to colonise.

In April 2017, during my scuba dive with Aquaworld I was able to see sculptures, such as The Banker, Garden of Hope and Collector of Dreams. Works of art you can imagine seeing in one of the temporary street art exhibitions we are graced with in London. There is a novelty in seeing them 10m underwater at varying stages of natural invasion. The coral growing on the sculptures is still in its infancy; meaning marine life is slim on the ground. While the MUSA visit is unique, it is not the most visually diverse of dives compared to others in the Riviera Maya.

My favourite section, the one I remembered most clearly from the documentary, is The Silent Evolution. Being the largest crowd of human sculptures in the museum, I found the huddle of lifelike sculptures complete with facial expressions beautifully eerie. Only the limited time we spent at this spot was disappointing – it reminded me of Lenin’s Mausoleum in Moscow. Creeping forward in the queue for hours, or in this case kicking over sand, there is suddenly a rush as you are ushered past the main attraction, with barely time to appreciate the moment.

The museum has worked with several other artists to add different sections and continue to grow. Due to the dispersion of each area, you were unable to see the whole museum in a one-tank dive. Where you visit on your dive depends on the weather and the boat’s plan for the day.

I would recommend organising a private dive of MUSA, also available through Aquaworld, rather than the regular group trips. This would allow you to structure your dive, customising the route you take to ensure you experience the areas of interest to you.

Annie Ross is the founder of exerk.com and a freelance fitness and travel writer. Follow her on Instagram here.

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