The tour begins
So it was , on day four of our , ahem , ‘ nondiving holiday ’, we boarded our diving boat on the Manavgat river at 8am , motored out onto the Mediterranean Sea and headed north . It took 60 minutes to get to the underwater museum , which is 1.5m offshore . I was diving with Barracuda Club Side , with the owner of the boat and dive master Ismail Toga . We had 15 divers onboard and most of them were continuing their dive training and doing their first open water dive , so we got in first . Equipment wasn ’ t exactly the finest quality , but I didn ’ t have any issues with it .
On our first dive , we descended to 25m to the Turkish coastguard cutter TCSG 117 . It was sunk in 2008 to create an artificial reef . The wreck is home to schooling fish , the odd grouper and lots of lionfish . There are big slabs of steel laying across the seabed for 30m . It ’ s a passable wreck . But not what I was there to see .
Just beyond the wreck and out of the gloom , I could see what I came for . Spread out over the sand I could first make out a group of statues of soldiers on their knees with rifles at their shoulders . As we swam further , more soldiers appeared , some standing in groups behind sandbags . Further on there are three or four field guns with troops behind them loading the guns , making a combined scene depicting the Turkish War of Independence ( 1919 – 1923 ).
We ventured a little further , into the shadow of a 3.5m statue of the mighty Poseidon . The Greek god of the sea was positioned between two columns with his trident spear in hand and his sea goddess wife Amphitrite ( not to be confused for Aphrodite ) close by . Whoa ? Could it be that Poseidon was on the side of the Turkish soldiers in their battle for independence ? The answer has been lost to history .
Myth and Mystics
At 18m , near the wreck , there ’ s another display of life-sized statues of camels and horses : caravans of camels carrying grain and food for trade from the past . Amazing – what a fantastic first dive we had . We surfaced and got back on board our boat to have some lunch whilst the dive guides took the other guests and novices on their first dive . Everyone came out off the water smiling .
On dive two we descend to 12m onto a sandy seabed , to be greeted by a 10m circle of statues of the Mevlevi Dervishes . This section comprises 30 statues devoted to Jalaluddin Rumi , the famous mystic and poet that requires the faithful to spin until they ’ ve attained a kind of religious ecstasy . As we progressed , there were statues everywhere . We swam through up and
The Turkish War of Independence sculpture groups depict soldiers with rifles , bayonets fixed , sandbags , trenches and field guns
The Mevlevi Whirling Dervishes spiritual whirling dance
The biggest and most striking is the statue of Poseidon
One of Poseidon ’ s wives was the sea goddess , Amphitrite
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