Archeology Trail

The dive

Archeology Trail is the English label the catalogue carries for the Percorso archeologico delle Ancore, one of the eight numbered underwater itineraries the Area Marina Protetta Isole Ciclopi publishes for its own waters. It is not a reef and not a wreck: it is a managed route over a sand-and-rock bottom in the bay facing Capo Mulini, about 250 m off the shore, where eight iron anchors lie where they came to rest. Guida Sicilia dates them between the Roman republican period and the early Middle Ages, and reports that they were identified together with amphorae of several types during surveys run by the University of Catania between 1995 and 2001. They were deliberately left in situ, and the route is marked on the surface by the buoy the reserve numbers as dive point 2.

The two published depth figures do not agree. The AMP's own itinerary sheet gives the route a band of 10 to 23 m and grades it easy, with light current and what it calls excellent visibility; Guida Sicilia gives 14 to 24 m. Either way this is a shallow, unhurried dive whose interest is archaeological rather than topographic — the descent runs down a line, and a continuous guide rope links the anchors so that the route is followed rather than searched for. The same rope carries a tactile section with Braille signage, added so that blind and visually impaired divers can be guided along it.

The pin sits in the northern half of the reserve, roughly half a kilometre south of the Capo Mulini lighthouse and about 1.8 km from the Aci Trezza stacks. It is one of a chain: the AMP names eight itineraries in this small stretch of coast, and the catalogue holds separate pins for several of them (Lighthouse Wall, Panettoni, The Castle, Aguzza Point) within a couple of kilometres. Diving here is regulated. The reserve's zonation document allows guided underwater visits in zones B and C only, run by dive centres the managing body has authorised, and Guida Sicilia states that visitors must hold an open-water certificate and be accompanied by a centre. Anchoring is forbidden in zone B; boats moor on the reserve's own buoy fields, and the speed limit is five knots.

On the bottom you are looking at Ionian rocky-shore fauna over volcanic sand: OBIS records for this pin are dominated by ornate wrasse, rainbow wrasse, painted comber, damselfish, Mediterranean parrotfish, cardinalfish and Mediterranean moray, with dotted sea slug, Cratena peregrina and Flabellina affinis among the nudibranchs and the orange starfish Ophidiaster ophidianus on the rock. Bottlenose dolphins are recorded in the same waters.

• Eight iron anchors, Roman republican to early medieval, left where they were found
• A continuous guide rope runs the whole route, with a tactile section and Braille signage
• Dive point 2 of the AMP Isole Ciclopi, marked by its own surface buoy
• Sand and rock between roughly 10 and 24 m, graded easy by the reserve

Conditions

A sheltered, shallow bay dive over sand and rock with light current, which is why the reserve grades the itinerary easy. The AMP describes visibility here as excellent; no source publishes a figure in metres.

On current: The AMP's itinerary sheet rates the current here as light and the visibility as excellent. The two sources disagree on depth: the reserve gives 10-23 m, Guida Sicilia 14-24 m, so the wider and deeper 10-24 m band is carried here and a diver should plan for 24 m rather than 23.