UKDIVING TRAVELSPECIAL
Intricate floor design at Ninfeo Di Claudio
Dive trails for Ninfeo di Claudio
the park, owned by one of the wealthiest families in Pozzouli back in Roman times. The walkways were long, leading to the remaining features of a large fountain in the garden area, and an intact oven
54 in the kitchen. It looked very much like a modern-day pizza oven. There was another beautiful tulip design on a mosaic floor, but only a peek this time of a much larger floor beneath 60cm( 2ft) of sand.
The A Team
The B Team
Day three began with Terme Del Lacus. As you swim through what was the main doorway, the iconic large reception room with the statues, buried waist deep, and positioned in the alcoves of the room, give a sense of the opulent lifestyle and how this room would have been used to entertain powerful guests. The original statues have been removed for preservation and are now in the local museum.
The final dive saved the best for last. At Ninfeo Di Claudio, we swam along a Roman road before entering huge rooms with extensive mosaic floors of intricate designs, with beautiful colours that don’ t seem to have aged over the centuries. One of the rooms was the spa with the top edging of the pool just peeking through the sand – somewhere that Romans would have laid alongside to talk, influence and persuade.
As a large group of 18, we dived in two groups. Group A dived in the morning and Group B in the afternoon, each taking it in turns to go out on the Centre’ s large RIB. On the second day we had an added experience – a 4.4. magnitude earthquake. Group A experienced it underwater while the rest of us felt it on land. This is a seismically active area; it’ s something the locals seem to take in their stride.
Experiencing an earthquake underwater was a new experience. One of our divers described it:“ The sound was a brief but consistent sound like a pneumatic drill used to dig up the road. You don’ t just hear it, but feel it through your whole body; it’ s a bit like you are being shaken. None of us knew what was happening when the first tremor happened, but we realised after the subsequent two. It didn’ t seem to affect the seabed or marine life, as nothing shifted on the bottom, as it does on land. Interesting, and a first for me!”