This week, archaeologists officially announced the discovery of a shipwreck off Spain's Mediterranean coast. Dating to the first century, the unusually large wreck -- estimated to be 100 feet long with a capacity of roughly 400 tons -- is reported to have been carrying well-preserved, 3-foot-tall clay jars used for holding fish sauce, a prized condiment for wealthy Romans. Amazingly, within the jars, archaeologists have uncovered 2,000-year-old fish bones.

Resting in only 80 feet of water, the wreck was discovered by boaters in 2000. Unfortunately, news of the wreck quickly spread, and rogue divers absconded with many of the ship's amphorae, forcing the local government to install thick metal grates over the ship to protect it. What remains of the ship lies almost entirely buried in mud. Experts believe the remaining cargo to be not nearly as exciting as 2000-year-old fish bones. Instead, they expect to find lead and copper, used for plumbing and jewelry, respectively. No word yet on whether the Romans used tartar sauce.

According to the Greek Air Force, Greek military divers successfully raised the wreckage of a German World War II Stuka bomber from the sea floor last Friday. Shot down in 1942, the Junkers-87 dive-bomber has been resting 492 feet below the surface, off the island of Rhodes. Initial reports do not indicate the existence of human remains.

Out of an estimated 6,000 aircraft produced between 1936 and 1944, only two survive intact in museums, although the wrecks of three more Stukas have been salvaged. This once-feared Nazi plane will be conserved and displayed at an air force museum near Athens.

Diving deeper, longer, and into unknown places has long been the dream of many divers. Hence, the reason for increasingly advanced dive gear, more complicated gas mixtures, and specially-designed submersible-suits. If you're one of these budding explorers who just can't seem to get deep enough, then I've discovered your next trip: you'll be heading into the abyss with Deep Ocean Expeditions. Who knows, while vacationing up to 17,000 feet below the waves, you might discover a new species!

Deep Ocean is the brainchild of Australian adrenaline-junkie Mike McDowell, founder of Quark Expeditions. Deep Ocean -- as the name suggests -- explores the nether-regions of the oceans using 25-foot-long MIR submersibles. Rather than just take you down, show you around, and then surface, however, Deep Ocean "educates through exploration." In other words, you'll be treated to in-depth discussions by noted experts who will explain what you're seeing. Happily, the deep blue company is decidedly green: all their visits to the seafloor are conducted with "negligible or no impact on our oceans."

In addition to visiting hydrothermal vents around the world, Deep Ocean has taken passengers to wrecks like the Bismarck, and subs, including Komsomolets, Kursk, and the I-52; they even assisted James Cameron in the making of Ghosts of the Abyss. In the coming years, Deep Oceans' crew will be making trips to explore shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and -- in my mind, the most intriguing -- the Coral Triangle area off PNG. Unfortunately, these trips don't come cheap: according to the itinerary (PDF), a 15-day visit to PNG will cost between $4850-$6300, depending on berth selection. To help you decide if that kind of cash outlay is right for you, check out Deep Ocean's small but sweet video gallery. You'll be asking, "Where do I sign?"

[Via X-Ray Mag]

As soon as I saw this photo by Arne Kuilman, I knew it was a winner!

Arne shot this gorgeous photo in Medes, Spain. According to him, this picture was taken in front of a cave where hundreds of jellies reside. I love the way the jelly obscures the sunburst, which in turn makes the jelly appear to glow. Great, great shot. Don't forget to add your sunburst shots to Divester's Flickr pool!

We told you that recent oil spills in Lebanon threaten more than 50 miles of Lebanese beaches and 6 miles of Syrian coastline. Moreover, the spills threaten tuna, sharks, and green turtles that nest in the area. Determined to help, some UAE divers with experience in clean-up operations -- including post-tsunami Thailand -- and equipped with lift bags supplied by the Dubai Police have decided to do something about the mess.

As soon as they receive the "all clear" sign, Ibrahim Al-Zu'bi and some of the 650 members of the Emirates Diving Association will head to Lebanon to attack the environmental damage. According to Al-Zu'bi, "Members are...willing to camp on the beaches if necessary. We'll do the cleaning ourselves, it's what we've been doing for the last 11 years." With expertise in protecting coral reefs, the EDA will be educating the public, cleaning up debris, examining the reefs, performing basic fish counts, and doing anything else they need to do to save the area's environment. What a great way to help marine life and promote diving at the same time!

This weekend, two vessels -- the MV Karwela and the MV Cominoland -- will be scuttled off the Maltese Island of Gozo. The sinking is part of the EU's "Niche Tourism for the Island of Gozo" project. Gozo already boasts several underwater attractions -- including the famous Blue Hole -- and EU officials hope the new wrecks will increase so-called niche tourism -- in the form of diving -- for the island even more. If you live in the area, the scuttling is scheduled to begin around 1000CEST. If you don't live in the area, then you can visit the wrecks after marine life begins to collect.

[Thanks, Craig!]

Being a savvy diver and a worldly sort of person, you already know that Greece recently opened 18,000 miles of its coastline to divers. However, you might be wondering about the quality of the area's diving. Previously, we'd mentioned Crete: with great viz; thriving marine life; and plenty of floundered fishing boats and WWII-era ships in relatively shallow water, there's plenty to keep the average diver busy for a long time. But if you're looking for more details, Scuba Geek has found two great trip reports from recent dives in the area.

First, Stelios Grigoriou turned in this engaging report about diving in Athens. With water temps ranging from 51-86° F, the area immediately surrounding Athens is a bit congested due to boats. Nevertheless, most area dive sites are easily accessible by car. In fact, Grigoriou writes that Athens boasts at least "4 modern wrecks in depths permitted to recreational divers and...4 in depths reached easily by technical divers." Currents are generally not an issue, and the viz hovers in the 45-60 foot range. His only warning is that, given the number of boats in the region, it's essential that divers use dive buoys.

Second, Dimitris Kotsifakis writes about his experiences diving the island of Samothraki in the northeastern part of the Aegean Sea. With mountains and waterfalls ringing the dive sites, Kotsifakis claims that the diving is amazing: crystal clear water, abundant marine life, dynamic rock walls, and a variety of reef to explore.

Generally, it sounds like Greek diving, while in its infancy, has a lot to offer. It's certainly a place to keep on your short list.

Generally speaking, diving isn't a very sexy sport. Let's face it: we pull ourselves into skin-tight wetsuits that don't flatter us. We wear goofy-looking equipment that makes us wobble around the boat. And when we're finished diving, we get a weird ring around our faces, and we usually have snot dripping from our noses. We're not a sexy bunch. But that doesn't mean the places we visit can't be sexy.

In fact, the world is filled with sexy, dive-friendly islands, and if you doubt me, check out this list of the world's 10 sexiest islands. The list's makers claim that, to be "sexy," the islands had to be "neither overdeveloped nor underdeveloped"; had to maintain the right level of indulgence; had to be neither too easy (not too hard) to reach; and had to have unusual natural or cultural features. Briefly, the islands are:

1. Anguilla
2. Corsica
3. Hvar
4. Formentera
5. Lhaviyani Atoll
6. Molokai
7. Paradise Island
8. St. Barthelemy
9. Santorini
10. Sardinia

Be sure to check out the slideshow of the islands. It includes tips on where to stay and how to get there.

Algarve is far and away Portugal's most popular tourist destination with over 25 million visitors annually. Located in the extreme southern part of the country, Algarve stretches from the Spanish border on the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. Despite the huge number of visitors the region receives, though, the Algarve only hosts around 25,000 dives annually. IPIMAR, a Portuguese agency dedicated to the ocean, is hoping to change that.

Recently, IPIMAR announced its desire to promote scuba diving in the region. The announcement is one component of the SUBMED -- the Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Subaquatic Tourism -- Project, which will be finalized this September. According to Miguel Neves dos Santos, a biologist for IPIMAR, the gap between the number of visitors and the number of dives made needs to be reduced, if the country wants to make scuba diving a sustainable economic activity. 

If the region is already a tourist wonderland, why are there so few divers? The good folks at Dive Inspirations speculate that it's the fault of chilly waters. (In fact, sea water temperatures range from only 57F to 71F.) Additionally, I'd like to point out that surfing vacations in this area are popular, and maybe people are turned off by rough seas. Nevertheless, this is great news for Algarve's local dive shops, like Tivoli-Diving, Marina Dive Time, Espirito Azul, and Dive-Time.

Have you been diving in the Algarve region? What did you think?

Husband-and-wife team Beth and Shaun Tierney recently published a book called Diving The World. Part of Footprint Travel Guides, Diving The World carefully describes and compares over 200 of the world's top dive sites, including Australia, PNG, Solomons, Fiji, Galápagos, Belize, Mexico, Honduras, Egypt, East Africa, Maldives, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, and Micronesia. The 352-page book  is crammed (in a good way) with maps, color photos, information on climate and dive conditions, anecdotes of the various dive sites, local conservation issues, and suggested top-side activities. Looking inside the book set my mouth to watering. Must...get...copy...

For a taste of what the book is like, check out the Tierneys' website, Sea Focus, which is loaded with tons of exquisite underwater (and topside) images as well as comprehensive trip reports they have compiled through their work/travels. Must...get...this...job...

To get your own copy, you can order through Footprints, Sea Focus, or (if you live in the US, it's cheapest from) Amazon.

It's a new month, so it's time for a new issue of the always-excellent (and always free!) X-Ray Magazine. Issue #11 checks in at 98 pages, and is once again filled with vibrant images, current news, and great trip reports -- including Patagonia (despite being cold-water diving, this report just made Patagonia jump a few notches on my must-dive list!); El Hierro, Spain; Palau; and the Maldives. There's also a very interesting piece on coral bleaching; a cool adventure story called "Crossing the Atlantic"; and a super round-up of skin care products for water-lovers. I wish I'd printed this issue out BEFORE going on vacation last week, but I can study it in depth this weekend. Enjoy!

In a sense, any dive site that boasts a shipwreck is an underwater museum. Frozen in time, a wreck is a snapshot of maritime technology. However, more than just a glimpse at a ship's engineering, underwater archaeologists are able to learn about the culture that used it; reconstruct ancient shipping routes; or unravel some of history's mysteries. Even in the best case scenario, though, most sites only have one or two wrecks, which most people wouldn't call a "museum."

However, there are a number of places where harbors have flooded, or entire cities have dissolved into the sea, allowing history buffs, scuba divers, or average tourists to travel into the past and see what life was like "back then." The real beauty of underwater museums, though, is that while "regular" museums remove ancient artifacts from their resting sites, submerged museums preserve them, intact, and in context.

1. The most recent entrant into the world of underwater museums is in the Mediterranean. In Israel's coastal city of Caesarea -- the site of "Herod's Harbor" -- visitors can inspect what was once one of the biggest and most sophisticated ports of the Roman Empire. Originally opened for business in 10 BC, the submerged harbor now rests in about 20 feet of water, and the museum itself covers some 18,580 square feet. With waterproof maps and an instructor to guide them, divers and snorkelers can swim among the 36 exhibits -- from sunken vessels, to giant anchors, to marble columns -- by following ropes tied between poles stuck in the sea floor.
2. Located off Alexandria, Egypt, the Underwater City of Cleopatra dates to 300 BC. Resting both inside and outside the harbor, the city crumbled into the sea after several earthquakes. Sitting between 15 and 45 feet of water, adventure-seekers can see ancient wrecks, sunken sphinxes, broken columns, a hieroglyph-covered obelisk, and thousands of granite blocks around Pharos Island (check out this great video of Pharos). If you're interested, Divernet has an excellent summary of the sites, as well as some of the potential hurdles they must overcome.
3. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, boasts the Shipwreck Trail, which features 9 shipwrecks spread across several miles, so you're not going to see all the wrecks at one go. Diving conditions vary from easy dives in shallow water to deeper dives of l00 feet or more. For each of the 9 wrecks, divers can access an underwater guide indicating the mooring positions; a history of the ship; a site map; and potential marine life. For people in the UK, the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology has set up a similar, 20-foot-deep archaeological trail off the Isle of Wight, which allows divers to move between numbered stations on the sunken HMS Pomone, a 38-gun frigate. 
4. The Spanish galleons Guadalupe and Tolosa sank in the Dominican Republic's Samana Bay during a hurricane in 1724. Undiscovered until the 1970s, the wrecks lay undisturbed for centuries; however, in the 1970s, they were removed for safekeeping. Recently, though, Indiana University students and faculty carefully returned the ballast stones, cannons, cannonballs, ceramic pieces and one anchor to the site. Currently resting in 12 to 15 feet of water, the quarter-acre site is easily accessible to snorkelers and divers.
5. The main portion of China's new Baiheliang Underwater Museum was completed recently. When fully constructed, the museum will protect the 18 fish figurines and more than 30,000 characters of poems carved over the past 1,200 years to measure the water level in the Yangtze River during low water seasons. 

My family lived in Cairo, Egypt when I was a boy. It was a terrific experience. During our time there, we visited tombs of pharaohs; saw light shows projected on the temples at Karnak; rode horses around the pyramids; swam in the Mediterranean; and much, much more. One day, I hope to return. In the meantime, however, I'm always on the lookout for new discoveries in that part of the world.

Yesterday, Egyptian authorities approved the underwater exploration of what appears to be a Roman city submerged in the Mediterranean, 20 miles east of the Suez Canal on Egypt's north coast, near Port Said. Egypt's top archaeologist, Zahi Hawass -- recently named one of Time Magazine's People Who Shape Our World -- said that an excavation team had found buildings, ruins of a Roman fortress, ancient coins, bronze vases, and pieces of pottery that date back to the Roman era. Moreover, the team found four bridges that belong to a submerged castle. No doubt, this will be a long, slow excavation process, but I'm anxious to see what else they find.

Just as State Department officials announced that Libya will be dropped from America's list of state sponsors of terror, the Independent Online is suggesting that the North African country might be the next hot travel/dive destination. Located on the southern edge of the Mediterranean, Libya is following Saudi Arabia's lead, hoping that holidaymakers who've already dived in North African waters (like Egypt's or even Crete's) will turn their sights on Colonel Qaddafi's homeland. In an effort to attract visitors, in fact, the country has secured roughly $3 billion in investment commitments to help build beach-front infrastructure.

In addition to a bevy of Roman and Greek ruins topside, Libya boasts an impressive -- and relatively unexplored -- 1250-mile coastline. Libya's warm waters are reportedly littered with wrecks and there's talk of a submerged underwater city offshore. Additionally, some dreamy treasure-hunters even believe that Nazi gold is hidden in the Sea. If you're interested in checking out the area for yourself, note that some dive shops have even appeared, oasis-like, along the coast.

Some people doubt whether Libya's tourism-attracting efforts will truly pay off, though. Currently, the existing service industry is abysmal; Libyans consider themselves above "menial" jobs such as waiting tables; and tourist visas often take 6 weeks to process. Consequently, many people think tourists will continue heading to neighboring Morocco and Tunisia, where visa processing can be completed upon arrival and the tourist infrastructure is already intact. Nevertheless -- for the right to boast "I've been there" -- the lure of unspoiled reefs and near-empty dive boats might outweigh administrative inconvenience and semi-shabby hotels.