The vice-president of the Galicia Tourism Cluster participated in the launch in Lariño of this initiative of the GALP Costa Sostible, Costa da Morte and Golfo Ártabro Sur.

Galicia’s rich heritage also extends to the seabed along its coastline, which is home to one of the largest concentrations of archaeological sites in the European Atlantic. The remains of all kinds of vessels sunk over the centuries, as well as aircraft and submarines from the Second World War that also ended their voyages in Galician waters, are a major attraction for recreational scuba diving enthusiasts, which several Local Action Groups of the Fishing Sector (GALP) want to take advantage of and promote.

The heads of three of these GALPs (Costa Sostible, Costa da Morte and Golfo Ártabro Sur) have joined forces to shape the project “Rimartes. Riches of the sea, treasures of the deep” and thus contribute to the development of these territories, made up of 25 municipalities covering around 300 kilometres of coastline between Sada and Porto do Son, by investing in a sector with great prospects for the future. Its aim is to attract diving enthusiasts of all levels: from snorkellers to those capable of scuba diving at depths of 40-50 metres.

After having carried out sectorial presentations during the last month in Porto do Son, Fisterra, Camariñas and Sada, its promoters met on the 14th of December in an emblematic place of the Costa da Morte to make the official presentation of Rimartes. The lighthouse of Lariño (Carnota), an establishment located in the vicinity of the place where the frigate Ariete sank in 1966 and whose hotel rooms are a reminder of that event, hosted an event in which the manager of the GALP Costa Sostible, Manuela Oviedo Hermida, and the vice-president of the Galicia Tourism Cluster, Jesús Picallo, took the floor.

Manuela Oviedo explained that Rimartes aims to “recover the feeling and the stories linked to the shipwrecks that can be visited in tourist establishments such as this recently inaugurated Hotel Faro de Lariño or in other places of reference such as the Cemetery of the English, among many others”. The initiative aims to create a specialised tourist product that values both the tangible and intangible heritage, as well as the biodiversity of the Galician waters. Picallo congratulated the GALPs for this project and expressed his confidence that Rimartes will enable the promotion of “emotional tourism” capable of attracting visitors from other countries and contributing to the deseasonalisation of the sector.

The first steps of the project have consisted of compiling information and cataloguing the shipwrecks in order to start planning routes in the three territories of the participating GALPs and preparing the informative materials that will be distributed to disseminate the initiative among the direct public, tourists in general and the local residents themselves. In addition to promotional leaflets, maps, videos, a website and specific spaces on social networks, an atlas of fishing species, information panels and other actions, the Rimartes promoters plan to carry out two familiarisation trips next spring so that the specialised media and the tourist agents of the territories involved can get to know the project and become involved in its dissemination.

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