A 67-year-old dive instructor died in Cyprus while diving with two trainees on the Zenobia ferry wreck off Larnaca on the morning of Saturday, 7 March.
The students were reported to have realised that the man was in difficulties and surfaced to raise the alarm.
The emergency was called in to the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC) at 9.40am and a Port & Marine Police speedboat was dispatched to the scene.
Its crew picked up the Greek Cypriot man and brought him ashore. An ambulance was waiting to take him to Larnaca General Hospital, but he was confirmed dead on arrival.
The 172m Zenobia was a Swedish ro-ro ferry that sank in 1980 and has since become one of the Mediterranean’s biggest and most popular artificial reefs. With depths ranging from 16 to 42m, the wreck can be suitable for divers at all levels.
No official details have been released about the cause of the incident, and the police have opened an investigation.
so very sad
I did a training dive on the Zenobia as part of my Advanced Open Water in 1997 and have to say it felt distinctly “advanced” at the time. It is what I can best term a deceptive wreck, its accessibility and sheer scale certainly make it an attractive dive, but the fact it lies on its side can make it very disorientating, even staying outside and doubly so if penetrator. A bit like a wall dive, there is always something interesting a bit deeper and without depth discipline it is very easy to wind up at a greater depth than you intended. It is this I tend to believe is the reason why an apparently straightforward dive has claimed a number of lives over the years.