- €221,612 secured from the Greek Recovery Fund for a brand-new Diving Park in Agia Pelagia.
- The site will feature artificial reefs made of cement pipes — essentially a luxury condo for fish.
- The goal is to boost diving tourism and improve marine biodiversity without scaring the octopuses.
- Malevizi officially joins the club of Greek municipalities, turning fun into sustainable tourism.
Move over, Mykonos rooftops — the new luxury address is underwater.
Agia Pelagia, already one of Crete’s prettiest bays, is about to open its very first artificial reef and diving attraction, built not for influencers, but for sea breams, groupers, and adventurous humans in wetsuits.
Thanks to €221,612 in funding from the Greek Recovery and Resilience Fund, the Municipality of Malevizi is literally dropping cement pipes into the sea — safely and smartly — to create a structured habitat where fish, coral, and other marine life can coexist in harmony.
The idea is simple: more reefs, more life, more reasons to visit.
Agia Pelagia’s natural seascape already has the clarity of bottled water and the kind of sand that makes flip-flops optional. Add a bit of engineering genius and you get an “open-air museum for divers.”
Each reef structure will follow international safety and environmental standards — meaning no fish will be evicted, and no diver will emerge with a cement souvenir on their head.
Because now you can say, “I went diving in Agia Pelagia and saw both history and plumbing.”
For beginners, the park will be a safe, shallow-space playground.
For advanced divers, it will be a living lab — a glimpse into how Greece blends ecology and tourism better than most countries blend their frappés.
And for non-divers, this project means calmer waters, cleaner habitats, and another reason to pick Malevizi as your Cretan base. The area already balances family beaches, tavernas that still remember what ‘home-cooked’ means, and views that make your phone battery cry.
Crete has always known how to reinvent itself — this time, it’s doing it below sea level.
By 2026, when divers descend into Agia Pelagia’s artificial reef park, they’ll be exploring not just a new tourist attraction but a living example of sustainable fun.
The sea gets richer, the fish get new neighbors, and visitors get bragging rights that sound far better than “I just lay on the beach all week.”
So yes — the next big thing in Crete might just be under your fins.
