• Tagged abandoned, abandoned boats, ancient shipwrecks, decay, destruction, disaster, relic, rusty and crusty, sea, seaside, shipwreck, shipwrecks, transportation, wrecks

We expect to see ships from land as they sail away, but there is something eerily intriguing about ships that you see from land because they are above-water wrecks. Some are rusty and crusty shipwrecks that didn’t sink completely underwater, while others crashed, collided, or ran aground on the sandy beach or rocky reef. Yet other wrecks were perfectly fine ships that nature picked up and tossed on land via a hurricane, typhoon or tsunami. Even though these abandoned boats litter nature, the shores or shallow waters, there is still a haunting beauty to wrecks and to seascapes with relic ribs where ghostly wreckage remains. It makes us ponder what the story is behind these shipwrecks visible from land and what the sailors endured. The United Nations estimates more than 3 million shipwrecks litter the ocean floor, but we could find no estimate to the number of boats that are abandoned, derelict or beached worldwide. Here are 48 fabulous photos showing eerily intriguing shipwrecks in varying states of destruction and decay. [48 Photos]

• Tagged abandoned, abandoned ghost town, abandoned railway station, abandoned resort, Abkhazia, architecture, bizarre, Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, forest, Gagra, Georgia, ghost town, ghosts, haunted, mountains, resort, Russian Riviera, Russian ruins, seaside, war, waterfall, woods

Once upon a time, in a subtropical climate on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, there were glorious scenic wonders like beautiful beaches, lush wooded mountains, and buildings of grandeur at a resort paradise known as the Russian Riviera. But a bloody war erupted in Gagra and countless thousands were murdered, an extermination of the Georgian people. Gagra became a war-torn paradise resort in ruins. Now this “Russian Riviera” is an abandoned ghost town. [46 Photos]