Thinking of a reason to visit Australia beyond its beaches and the Great Barrier Reef? Well, here is one to consider: the Museum of Underwater Arts, which has been in planning for two years, is now open to tourists.
Created by British sculptor and environmentalist Jason deCaires Taylor, the Museum of Underwater Arts (MOUA) is located in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia. The first artwork is the Ocean Siren. It is a solar-powered sculpture of a young indigenous girl that changes colour as a visual warning of critical warming, using live water-temperature data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The sculpture will be exposed at low tide and underwater at high tide.
The second installation is the 53-foot deep Coral Greenhouse at the heart of the John Brewer Reef. The 40-foot-long skeletal building contains 20 concrete life-sized students working with coral. They are anchored to the seafloor and are all moulded after real people, seemingly frozen in time. Coral Greenhouse is MOUA’s largest installation, weighing 64 tons and strong enough to withstand a Category 4 cyclone.
Beyond being a strong tourism draw and a habitat for marine creatures, Coral Greenhouse functions as a laboratory. Water salinity, pH and oxygen levels are monitored, and an underwater camera captures the development of the corals. It is also hoped that it will expand ocean research and conservation, including coral spawning, the biology of mangroves, herbivorous fish and marine protected areas, all of which will be monitored and recorded by citizen scientists.
“The aim is to plant some local corals in the Greenhouse for research and education,” says Dr. Adam Smith, co-founder of the MOUA. “There has also been some natural recruitment of algae, coral, invertebrates and fish to the Coral Greenhouse, and a recent survey indicated over 50 species of fish, including the rare and protected Barramundi cod.”
The idea behind MOUA was inspired by Mexico’s Underwater Museum of Art in Cancun, which opened in 2010 and holds over 500 lifesized sculptures. MOUA is working with five authorized commercial tourism operators to allow visitors to experience the seabed museum, assisted by dive instructors and guides. For now, guests wanting to visit by charter yacht can use nearby Orpheus Island Resort which is one of MOUA’s authorized operators. The resort offers a 131-foot superyacht Flying Fish for charter.
Source: Robb Report