Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA)
The ‘Museo Subacuático de Arte’, also known as MUSA, is a dream come true for water enthusiasts. It consists of about 500 life-size underwater installations in the beautiful waters of Cancun. This Caribbean Island is a popular vacation destination for its natural beauty and stunning coastline, but most people don’t realize there are hidden treasures beneath the surface as well. Created by British sculptor Jason De Caires Taylor, this underwater museum coupled with an exotic fauna makes for a jaw-dropping adventure.
MUSA was created as a diversion for people disrupting the balance of underwater fauna in the Caribbean coastline. It was seen as a solution to limit the number of divers who flooded these waters every day destroying the coral reef. With that in mind, the Cancun National Marine Park dropped 500 pH-neutral marine concrete statues into the ocean creating the Isla Mujeres and Punta Nizuc Underwater Museum. The museum has three galleries and is working towards expanding it to 10 galleries with 1200 statues.
Visitors can dive 8 meters to experience the statues up close, or if you are not into diving that deep, there’s an option to ride on a glass-bottom boat. The statues range from simple moments of life in the fishing community to world-renowned art forms such as the ‘Vicissitude’ collection or ‘The Silent Evolution’. Over time these statues have blended in with algae, coral reef and the underwater landscape to form something extraordinary.
