Kenya has made significant strides in launching Africa's first-ever underwater museum in Kilifi County.
The state-of-the-art museum that is already taking shape, will allow scuba divers to explore shipwrecks that have been sitting on the Indian Ocean floor for over 600 years.
The iconic wrecks were discovered by a team of 22 Chinese nationals and Kenyan archaeologists.
According to Cesar Bita, the underwater project lead, the rarest museum will be a home of the unique Portuguese and Arabic shipwrecks - the Portuguese one will be a central point of the museum.
The underwater museum display will have an array of iron ship-making tools and concrete artefacts all telling the East African culture.
“The museum, once fully operational, will also showcase and demonstrate the interaction between art and environmental science in a unique way.
“A large part of the project also has to do with the sea environment in that part of Kenya," the project lead noted.
Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi noted that tourists were already beginning to visit the underwater site, which is partially operational.
“People are coming because it’s beautiful,” he said, adding, “The site has some of the rarest marine ecosystems in the world” and it is a bonus that tourists can now “witness many of the events that took place in the ancient world," he stated.
A report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) reveals that the world has only 11 underwater museums, with many of them being in North America and Asia.
The scuba divers and other visitors of the museum will see submerged artwork that highlights other aspects of the area’s maritime history, including the slave trade that blighted East Africa’s shores across the centuries.
Tanzania already has an underwater hotel and now with the launching of the museum, it is going to create a perfect opportunity for the upholding of East African history.
The museum is projected to receive 90,000 and 200,000 visitors a year with tourists coming from all over the world to explore the iconic underwater museum.
