Green Bay on the east coast of Cyprus – a popular bay for snorkellers and divers. Filled with wonderfully diverse marine life and even an underwater sculpture park! But until recently, we’d never heard of it. Embarrassing really.

We were on holiday in Makronissos. The weather was windy the whole week, so we headed to the calmer eastern coast to find good places to snorkel. We chose them purely on how interesting they looked on Google Earth. First was Vrysoudia Bay which introduced us to the beauty of the eastern underwater world. We wondered, what else is this coastline hiding? And then I saw this:  

This interesting-looking place is Green Bay. And in our experience, rocky headlands can mean two things: reefs and sea caves. We drove straight there. The car park was full of diving company trucks. We looked out across the broken headland, dotted with small sea caves. Spread out beneath, large areas of reef shimmered beneath the clear blue water. This place looked awesome!  

To the left of the headland is Nisia Loumbardi beach, to the right is Green Bay’s public beach, offering places to sunbathe. But further along the headland, where the land breaks up, are channels of water. The channels to the left offer the perfect place for divers and snorkellers to enter Green Bay’s underwater kingdom. The first channel is very shallow and sandy. Goobie and I donned our masks and waded in, past beginner divers learning about their equipment.  

The channel got deeper and tiny fish swam around us. I saw a really interesting rock formation that looked like loads of ancient shards of pottery squashed together. Apparently you can actually see ancient pottery here, so perhaps that’s what it was.  

We swam out into deeper water, to a massive rock a few metres beneath us. This is Fish Rock, so-called because it’s a feeding area for fish. Divers sat below and watched as a freediver swam down with some food. Soon we were in the centre of a massive shoal of damselfish. Behind them were dozens of large sea bream. I’ve never seen anything like it. We were surrounded! It was utterly magical.  

In the centre was the one fish we’d been keen to spot. A yellow and black striped sergeant major. Seeing a sergeant major is quite something for one main reason: they don’t belong in the Mediterranean Sea. They are an alien species who (along with various other species, like the lionfish) has entered the Mediterranean by swimming up the Suez Canal from the Red Sea. We saw loads snorkelling in Jordan.  

We swam on towards the open sea and the shoals of fish parted like a giant curtain. Before us the reef ended abruptly and the depth plummeted. Sandy sea bed stretched as far as the eye could see into the blue.  

And then I saw it. Rising up from the sea bed was the dark shape of a statue standing proud beneath the cliff edge of the reef. And another one. And another. There were over a dozen. I felt like I’d just discovered Atlantis. Or something.  

I’ve seen photos of these statues online and thought they were a Photoshop jobbie. I didn’t know they were real! This is the Ayia Napa underwater sculpture park, a man-made reef inspired by Greek mythology. Beautiful. Soon, divers arrived and enjoyed a close-up tour of the park, 10 metres down. Diving here is now high up on my bucket list.  

We swam to the little island at the far end of the headland, past long sea grass. Turtles are frequently seen here. A large cornetfish meandered slow beneath us and sea cucumbers lay on the sea bed, like pieces of old rope.  

A low sea cave reached into the island but the rock was sharp so we didn’t go in. Instead we headed inland towards the middle channel. This middle channel is deeper than the first but on the eastern side of it is what I dubbed ‘The Garden’. The Garden is an area of shallow water found around the rocks at the tip of headland. Within it are sea plants of every colour and it hosts numerous fish nurseries. Thousands of tiny fish find safety in these rocky pools.  

From the middle channel I spotted an excellent sea cave that sat hidden just beneath where we’d parked the car. It was the perfect place for lunch.  

As we ate our food in the cool shade of the cave, a rock pool by our feet sprang to life. Shrimps, rainbow wrasse, ornate wrasse, baby bream and a dozen crabs appeared from nooks in the rocks.  

And then, from an unseen hole just centimetres from my feet, crawled the mother of all crabs. What a beauty she was.  

Lunch finished, there was only one thing left to do. Take Matt and Herc to Fish Rock. Herc wore his beloved new goggles and a life jacket and we all headed out together to swim with the largest shoal of fish we’ve seen in Cyprus. ‘Fish! Fish!’ Herc squealed excitedly as he put his face in the water. Gloriously magical memories.