First Water Museum Opens In Mexico, Cancun

A series of sculptures submerged off the coast of the tourist resort of Cancun in the Mexican Caribbean, can be visited from today in Underwater Sculpture Museum, the first in the country and opened its doors with three works by British Jason Caires Taylor.
The museum's president, Roberto Diaz, told Efe said today the latest work performed to ensure the structures and leave them in optimal conditions to be visited by tourists travelling the area in diving tours and snorkel.
The museum will have four "rooms" located in Punta Nizuc, Manchones, the area of La Carbonera in Isla Mujeres, and the area called Aristos in Punta Cancun, each with approximately one square mile on the ocean floor.
The idea is to immerse a total of 400 sculptures as part of an investment of about $ 350,000, driven by the Ministry of Environment of Mexico and Cancun Nautical Association, which seeks that the country has the world's largest underwater museum.
The four sculptures commissioned more immersed in three weeks, and estimate that by mid-2011 to the 400 already installed.
The first three pieces that were placed during the weekend was "The Collector of Lost Dreams," Man on Fire and The Flower of Hope, all of life-size human figures of the British De Caires, who lives Cancun and will be the artistic director of the museum.
The sculptures will each have a base of between one and three tonnes and are bolted to a rock face near natural reefs.
In Nizuc and La Carbonera with two feet deep, visitors pay $ 40 to do with equipment snorkel! Artistic creations, whereas in Aristos and Manchones, where the waters are 10 meters deep, will require pay $ 90 to dive with oxygen tank if you are a beginner or $ 50 if you already have experience.
Jaime Gonzalez Cano, director of West Coast National Park Isla Mujeres, Punta Cancun and Punta Nizuc, in whose waters the project is located, said that "the submarine museum will attract many visitors and also allow us to give a deserved rest to coral natural ".
In his view, the new museum will take away tourists bet the reefs in the area, which are visited annually by over 750,000 tourists, representing a significant burden on the fragile ecosystem.
The marine industry recorded every year Cancun earning more than $ 36 million.
In addition, museum officials soon will open a visitor centre where it will be possible to know scale reproductions of the sculptures submerged, for those who can not make the dive to visit the original parts.