Limassol Wrecks and Reefs
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The Limassol Wrecks - Constandis and Lady Thetis
As part of an ongoing programme to promote dive tourism in Cyprus, the CTO and other authorities are creating artificial reefs and sinking new wrecks all around the Cyprus coastline.
The result in marine life development has been amazing and none more so than the artificial reef created by the two wrecks in Limassol.
With support from the CDCA (Cyprus Dive Centre Association) 2 new wrecks were sank just 200m apart followed by a large reef directly between them. These have become known as the Limassol wrecks.
The Constandis sits at a depth of 24m and was a USSR Trawler built in 1989 called ZOLOTETS.
The Lady Thetis sits at a depth of 19m and was a Hamburg passenger vessel called REIHER.
The wrecks are easy and safe to penetrate with many points of interest. These include the engine rooms, store rooms, bridges, a number of decks on different levels, doorways and hatches, stairwells, the hull area, props and the high masts.
The sea life has exploded in the area and just shows what these artificial and protected reefs can produce in terms of extensive and diverse marine life.
The wrecks are excellent dives with so much to explore and see, this whole area is being developed now for diving tourism and we are one of only a few Dive Centres that have been exploring new dives in the area. There is a large area around the reefs and wrecks that has been buoyed off to form a protected marine reserve. Within this area lie the wrecks and a whole series of artificial reefs. We not only dive the wrecks but also these large reefs are a great dive too, in fact a great dive is to dive the reefs and then head for the Lady Thetis to complete what is a very interesting route and a very long dive.
The reefs consist of a series of different structures which start off from the main descent line with large areas of boulders some 5-6m in height. From here there are then lines heading off in all directions to large artificial structures which include masses of amphora, concrete structures, large trapezes, blocks of tubes and other man made shapes. There are also more of these structures planned with some large walls being put in place either side of the wrecks to encourage even more marine life and to protect the wrecks from water movement during bad sea conditions.
This mixture of wrecks and reefs serve to attract an abundance of marine life and we see great shoals of bait fish coming into the area followed by big shoals of the larger predators.
With the two wrecks to explore, a maze of different reefs and the prolific marine life this whole area can only become even better and even more interesting dives as they continue to develop. They are already home to some of the best numbers of marine life found on any dive site in Cyprus.
From what was a barren sandy bottom we now have large shoals of fish, barracuda, jacks, grouper, moray eels, lionfish, turtles, monk seals, sea slugs, nudibranchs, anemones and much more.
The wrecks are situated just 25 minutes from our Dive Centre and a short boat ride out to sea. These are dives not to be missed.
