Why visit a museum on land when you can go to a museum underwater? Perhaps that’s what the kingdom of Jordan thought when they decided to create a military museum below the waves in Aqaba, the Red Sea.
In 2019, the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) sank anti-aircraft guns, helicopters, armoured cars, Jeeps, tanks and an ambulance to create the Aqaba Underwater Military Museum – the first of its kind in the world.
Originally, 19 vehicles were sunk in just 7 working days. Two more were added at a later date. The vehicles are positioned on the seabed in battle formation.
- It's bigger than Central Park, is 24 metres down in the ocean – and contains hundreds of subway cars – and a few tanks
- "At first, they are little more than bare surfaces in the ocean’s vast expanse.” Why do sunken ships make good artificial reefs?
Like other artificial reefs, these sites hope to boost tourism to the region as well as making a home for corals and marine life. Their creation also gives existing reefs some respite: authorities hope to draw tourists to the new site and so relieve the pressure on areas that had previously been heavily visited.
Machines once designed to take lives in combat now support life in the ocean. It’s possible to see large schools of reef fishes fluttering like confetti in the water. Bannerfish, butterflyfish, damselfish, parrotfish and squirrelfish can all be found on this reef. Divers with a keen eye might also spot colourful nudibranchs, leering moray eels or elegant ghost pipefish.
Stay still long enough near a sandy bed and timid garden eels might pop their heads out as if admiring the view. These animals are very shy. As soon as they see you, they’re likely to vanish back into their dens.
Tourists can visit the reef by scuba diving, snorkelling. Those who want to see the attraction without getting wet can spot the two Jeeps (between 5 and 7 metres deep) from a glass bottom boat.
- On a site the size of 27 football fields, 2 million of these were dropped in the ocean to create an artificial reef – instead, it became a disaster
- Sunken warships fill this eerie lagoon – and they're scattered with gas masks, skulls and bullet casings
- It's longer than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, weighs 499 tonnes and sits 24 metres below the surface, where sharks patrol Noonu Atoll’s tropical waters
These aren’t the first military vehicles to end up in the sea in Aqaba. ‘The Tank’ is an M42 Duster – an anti-aircraft gun – that was scuttled in 1999 by the Jordanian Royal Ecological Diving Society. It’s easily accessible – just 20 metres from shore and around 6 metres deep.
In its decades on the seafloor, a whole community of creatures has gathered around the Tank, making themselves at home in the safety of its many crevices.
“Resting on a sandy bottom in shallow water, the military vehicle has been progressively colonised by corals and marine life, its gun turret now draped in soft corals while hard corals encrust the chassis,” says DivePlanner Pro on its website. “Schools of glassfish swirl around the turret, lionfish patrol the undercarriage, and blue-spotted stingrays rest in the sand nearby.”
top image: Underwater photo of an American tank - M42 Duster with anti-aircraft gun, Red Sea, Gulf of Aqaba, Aqaba, Jordan. Credit: imageBROKER/ Frank Schneider / Getty Images.
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