My friend Giovanni was quite right in saying to me, already several years ago, that there is no difference between “able and disabled persons”. Everything depends on how each of us considers and feels, with more or less kindness, reality. When we brought him underwater in that area, not yet a Marine Area then, in that cobalt blue-coloured sea of Plemmirio, we saw him rise and fall free from any prejudice and good looks. Then we thought of opening the sea waters vastness also to the young that, like him, had been blamed and considered only with mere and misleading compassion, above all in the past. So destroying wrong prejudices, we wanted to realize a project as coveted as important to be carried out.
The sea of the Protected Marine Area is within the reach of all people, it is for our disabled friends, for our children, for those groups ignored and intentionally forgotten up to now.

We have gone underwater with Mario, a blind boy, delighted for diving, organization and professional and faultless care of Siracusa Diving.
Mario says to me: “I have seen the colours of your sea, skimmed Posidonia fluctuating green bushes, caressed the “purple” arms of starfishes, felt the dazzling reflections of the rays of the “underwater sun” – And he adds: but, the next time, we will go deeper, maybe we can see some big fish!”.
There is also a very nice girl with us, it is Pina, a hyposighted girl, who defuses her condition by telling me about the times when walking the streets of Naples, her native town, and moving without any help, every now and then she bumps against poles and various obstacles.
- “But it is not for this reason that I give up, on the contrary, I go skiing too, helped by a friendly voice and choosing in advance a route without obstacles and above all trees.

- “When I’m underwater I feel completely calm, free to move and go around safely and without the risk of bumping against some poles.

“When I dive I feel as if I was in a fairy tale, succeeding in being completely free from everything or prejudice On the surface, we can see the cheerful and foamy plunges of the little divers, always helped by trainers to move their first “flippers” towards the deep blue sea. Then, all the questions about exploiting or not the undertaking in favour of one or another person are forgotten; we have believed in this project and so far we have got. Those coming after us will judge.
Furthermore, those who don’t want to go for a bathe can follow diving in real time on TV, and they can also listen to the guide who, while diving with his mask connected to a microphone, will explain them the wonders and secrets of the Plemmirio seabed.
An “ancient” sea, where Carthaginian warlike fleets and Greek and Roman commercial ships sailed. Amphora potsherds and necks, as well as wooden frames and anchors different in size, kind and belonging to various periods, which we can see on the seabed, through an archaeological route, bear witness of their passage.
Moreover, the several caves hollowed in the bare, white, calcareous rock over the centuries are of particular interest from a diving point of view. With their wonderful scenery and their shy tenants, such as scorpionfishes, brown meagres, morays and nudibranchs, make our diving experience even more fascinating and enchanting.

Where water currents are stronger there appears a big shoal of barracudas that will go with us, with an unusual whirl, during our dive.
Surprises continue at night too. Hundreds of tentacles move arrhythmically in a “primordial dance” in desperate search of food. They are the Comatula, distant cousins of starfishes. Even the Alicia Mirabilis with its tick hair banquets with them, while the sea-horses sheltered by their prehensile tail are ready to suck some harmless crustaceans wandering in the dark.
But the Marine Area is not only a stretch of sea.

All around, in the Mediterranean maquis dominated by the presence of the dwarf palm there is a lot of life. Near the Lighthouse of the Cape, now seat of AMP, we can meet the kingfisher, which finds its food in the facing waters teeming with fish.
Not far away, in the damp and brackish area of bogs, once used as saltpans, we can observe, above all in spring and summer, the elegant and sinuous flight of pink flamingos.
Furthermore, Siracusa is the Country and cradle of “Magna Graecia” culture, which we can find in architecture, theatre, gastronomy and people.
Temples joining in the indissoluble and “sacrilegious” union with early-Christian churches; tragedies and comedies, unique in the world,

even now regularly performed, cooking and rich and delicious sweets and people are the apotheosis of all that.
Nature, Culture, Myths and Tales find their natural nourishment and placing here. If you don’t believe us why don’t you come and have a look?

The area Marina Protetta of the Plemmirio, since his/her institution, you/he/she has otherwise aimed to a total accessibility from the skilled subjects and it is her/it before Italy to have paid the maximum attention to the conditions of peer opportunity for the fruition of the site. The sea of the Plemmirio is I deprive of "architectural barriers" and it allows the carriers of handicap, opportunely assisted, to enjoy some beauty of the extraordinary sea backdrops of this edge of earth that, also sott'acqua the passage of centuries of fascinating history, during which Syracuse has been to the center of the most beaten routs of the Mediterranean, testifies. <<Our mission. they affirm the vertexes of the area Marina Protetta of the Plemmirio, the president Sebastiano Romano and the manager Enzo Incontro. it is to realize a model of fruition that gives the possibility to whom doesn't possess all the abilities, to enter to a common property qual is the sea>>.

Was born so the idea to form, with an opportune didactic run, the figure of "Companion in sea of skilled people otherwise", only in the national panorama, which also places side by side him that of "Voluntary In Area Marina Protetta."

The courses of professional formation have been patronized by the Office for the Equal Opportunities, from the Office of the Job and the social Politics and from the regional assessorato to the family. In the circle of the intervention of Active Maintenance and Recovery of the Coastal Territory of the Peninsula of the Maddalena, the Consortium Plemmirio is pushed over. I have been individualized well seven accesses to the sea for disabled displaced within the Amp siracusana. Of these last, two are accesses beach, two on bluff, colons fish and one for the immersions. In the summer 2006, that it is as soon as the second from the institution of the Amp siracusana, great enthusiasm and share you has aroused the official inauguration of the access to the sea for carriers of handicap realized to the Fanusa, one of the seaside resorts more gettonates of the territory that it leans out on a beach of clear sand and end and it represents the door of entry to the wonder of the area Marina Protetta. For the realization of the succitato project, the Consortium plemmirio has used some collaboration of the it Consults provincial of the associations and of the disabled consumers, of the town assessorato to the sea and the family and of the provincial sections of the Italian union Ciechi and of the national corporate body sordomuti, to bring defeasible a more full-bodied project. To the Fanusa it is, in fact, present also a small disposition immovable property of the special use that acts from Infopoint for the tourism of the disabled persons. The specialistic personnel, previously formed, you has had the opportunity, once more, to try his own abilities acquired with one contemplated formative period both theorist how practical, lending service to support of how much you have asked for it for the whole summer season. An extraordinary opportunity, for the carriers of any type of handicap, physical or mental, to enjoy of one of the most beautiful beaches in Syracuse in all serenity and to make a dive in the transparent waters of the Fanusa. To the area Marina Protetta of the Plemmirio all is thought about measure of disabled person: from the great boat with the fund of glass, to allow the vision of the backdrops during the navigation, endowed with a suitable space for the baby carriage on board, already commissioned and of imminent arrival, to the future aquarium multisensoriale that will rise in the definitive center of the Consortium Plemmirio. The pulsating heart of the Amp will rise in a place of rare suggestion situated in that of Ortigia, islet of the myth within which the historical center in Syracuse is contained city declared patrimony Unesco, in that that has been a historical Barracks stretched out on the sea. The center reception realized to the inside will otherwise allow the skilled of to be able to interact with the fishes. Finally, the most original project, still only in the Mediterranean: two runs scuba divers realized for not seeing in the zone of Head Apple trees and of Point of the Nuns that also uses the language Braille to allow an informative support to the special one "visit" sott'acqua. Also who is I deprive some gift of the sight you/he/she can plunge in the splendid sea backdrops of the area Marina Protetta of the Plemmirio, in all safety, in aware and informed way. Because all, but really all, are "Free to fly" in sea.