'Titanic of the Med' wreck lures thousands of divers to Cyprus

'The wreck is treacherous'

Over three decades later, divers zig-zag between the sunken trucks, rusty but still intact, while the more experienced enter the dark caverns of the sleeping hulk or the upper car deck and accommodation area, some even making it to the engine room.

"You can still see the carpeting of the upper deck and even the tables in the restaurant area," said diving instructor Hatte Clasen of the wreck, which extends over 172 metres of seabed.

Although no one died when Zenobia sank, the wreck has since claimed the lives of several scuba divers.

"The wreck is treacherous: some divers take risks and lose themselves in rooms in which they should not enter," Clasen said.

Entering wrecks carries greater risk because of the danger of entanglement or getting trapped, as well as the extra time needed to reach the surface in the event of a problem.

Additional training, experience and equipment is often recommended, particularly when penetrating deep inside a wreck.

Luckily for less experienced divers there is plenty to see from the outside of the Zenobia, which has also become a magnet for marine life, an aquarium of brown groupers and barracudas.

Andrei Pligin, a 16-year-old enthusiast, re-surfaces from what was his 206th dive to rave about his latest experience.

"The weather is good. You don't have any currents. So you just get pleasure going all around the ship," said the young blue-eyed Russian, an annual visitor to the Mediterranean's third-largest island.

The site alone attracts 45,000 visitors each year, according to local authorities.

They have been campaigning for the government to impose a fishing ban around the Zenobia to preserve what has turned into the biggest coral reef off Cyprus.

Diving enthusiasts stress the tourism potential, lauding the destination as a rival to popular destinations including Egypt's Red Sea.

Jonathan Wilson, who runs a diving firm in Limassol, another Cypriot resort on the south coast, estimated the Zenobia brings in 14 million euros ($15 million) a year.

Sheltered from the chaos and insecurity of Arab countries across the water, recession-hit Cyprus relies heavily on revenues from tourism, a sector which accounts for around 12 percent of GDP.

With recovery on the horizon following a 2013 bailout of its banks, Cyprus says arrivals for the first six months of this year passed the one million mark for the first time in a decade.