Shipwrecks

Cyprus sits on old trade routes and has a coastline that has been catching ships for three thousand years. Some of the wrecks here are accidents, some were deliberately sunk to make reefs, and one is an ancient trading vessel still being excavated. Between them they have made the island one of the better wreck-diving destinations in the Mediterranean. This site documents 13 shipwrecks, listed by district further down the page.

The Zenobia

The Zenobia is the reason divers come to Cyprus. A Swedish roll-on roll-off ferry that went down off Larnaca on her maiden voyage, she is rated among the ten best wreck dives in the world and is the most emblematic in the Mediterranean, still loaded with the lorries she was carrying. She is a serious dive rather than a casual one, and is covered in more detail on the Zenobia diving site page.

Wrecks you can walk to

Two of the best known need no equipment at all. The EDRO III ran aground near the sea caves at Peyia and sits upright and largely intact a few metres off the rocks — one of the most photographed sights on the west coast, particularly at sunset. The MV Dimitrios II lies rusting in the shallows at Chloraka, north of Paphos, and is the other one everybody photographs.

The dive wrecks

Off Paralimni, the Nemesis III lies 600 metres from shore near Vrysoudia beach — a French-built vessel of 1956, originally named Thalia, deliberately sunk as an artificial reef, with the Liberty 150 sunk beside her for the same purpose.

Around Limassol the Lady Thetis, a German-built cruise boat, sits at 18 metres, and the Pharses II, lost in a storm in 1980, lies intact on her side at about 21 metres. Off Larnaca the HMS Cricket lies upside down at 27 metres, the only British warship wreck divable here.

The ancient one

The Mazotos Ancient Shipwreck is different in kind: a trading ship of the post-classical period lying at 45 metres off the Larnaca coast, an archaeological site rather than a recreational dive. For the dive sites themselves and the conditions, see diving in Cyprus.