SIGHT TO SEE
ISLA MUJERES, MEXICO
The world’ s largest underwater museum is playing a crucial role in promoting coral life, says Emily Lush
D rawing close to one million visitors a year, the Manchones Reef— part of the planet’ s second-largest coral network, stretching over 620 miles from the Yucatán Peninsula to Honduras— is one of the most frequented marine ecosystems in the world. To help ease the burden of tourism on this fragile section of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, marine park director and conservationist Dr. Jaime González Cano came up with a creative solution.
The non-profit Underwater Museum of Art( Museo Subacuático de Arte, or MUSA) is a submerged gallery set across 4,520 square feet of seabed off the coast of Mexico’ s Isla Mujeres. Crafted on land then lowered into the Caribbean at depths of 13 to 33 feet, more than 500 life-sized sculptures are arranged over two exhibits: The Salon Machones, suitable for both scuba divers and snorkelers, and the Salon Nizuc, which can be explored on a glass-bottomed boat.
The museum plays an important role in habitat rehabilitation by diverting potentially damaging traffic away from the natural reef and creating new underwater biomes for the Manchones’ diverse population of fish species. Cast from durable pH-neutral cement, each sculpture acts as a platform for juvenile coral growth.
The most iconic installation, The Silent Evolution by gallery co-founder Jason deCaires Taylor, is made up of 400 individual statues. Incredibly, 90 of them were cast from real men and women who live in the nearby fishing village of Puerto Morelos. Another of his works, Anthropocene, is a full-scale recreation of a Volkswagen Beetle that’ s become a haven for lobsters.
ESSENTIALS
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Guided snorkel trips, scuba expeditions and boat tours to the galleries can be arranged through MUSA or through our agency, departing from both Cancún and Isla Mujeres. A reservation is required to visit Galeria Villa Roda, the official MUSA information center in Cancún, where there’ s a replica sculpture garden and an artist workshop. image: shutterstock
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