The seabed is full of history, although it's rarely arranged in a particularly convenient way for visitors. Some of the world's most fascinating shipwrecks lie hundreds of metres underwater, accessible only to highly trained divers or extremely expensive submersibles. Not exactly ideal when you've got six hours in port and were hoping to fit in lunch.

Fortunately, you don't need to get wet to discover some extraordinary maritime disasters.

In Sweden, an entire seventeenth-century warship has been raised from the harbour where it sank almost immediately after setting sail. On a beach near Cape Town, the remains of a steamship stand in the sand where its captain made a spectacular navigational error. And in the Falkland Islands, a nineteenth-century sailing vessel has spent decades slowly surrendering to the weather.

Elsewhere, museums preserve the possessions, timbers and stories of people whose voyages ended in tragedy, sometimes within easy walking distance of a cruise terminal.

Here are seven remarkable shipwreck stories you can explore from cruise ports, with no diving qualifications required.

1. Vasa, Stockholm, Sweden: the warship that sank on its maiden voyage

In 1628, Sweden launched one of the most impressive warships ever built. The Vasa was richly decorated, carried 64 cannon and was intended to demonstrate the country's formidable naval power.

It managed to sail for approximately 20 minutes.

On 10 August, a gust of wind caught the towering vessel shortly after it left Stockholm harbour. The ship heeled over, water flooded through its open gunports and the Vasa sank in front of a crowd of spectators. Around 30 people died.

The problem was its design. The ship was dangerously top-heavy, a vulnerability revealed during stability testing before departure. The authorities nevertheless allowed it to sail.

It's difficult to imagine a more expensive way of discovering that your engineering calculations were optimistic.

More than three centuries later, the Vasa was raised in 1961. Today, the Vasa Museum houses the astonishingly well-preserved vessel, complete with its elaborate carvings and surviving objects belonging to those onboard.

Seeing the enormous dark wooden hull indoors is genuinely extraordinary. The museum also explores the crew's lives, the circumstances of the sinking and the decades of conservation required to keep the vessel intact.

For cruise passengers, it's one of the most straightforward shipwreck attractions in Europe. The museum sits on Djurgården, accessible by tram, ferry or taxi from central Stockholm. Depending on where your ship docks, you might also be able to walk there.

Allow at least two hours, although anyone with a serious interest in maritime history could easily spend longer.

Check visitor details at the official Vasa Museum website.

2. Mary Rose, Portsmouth, England: Henry VIII's lost flagship

On 19 July 1545, Henry VIII watched one of his most important warships sink during a confrontation with a French fleet in the Solent.

The Mary Rose had served the English navy for more than three decades. She wasn't an experimental vessel on her first outing, and the precise sequence of events leading to her sinking remains debated.

What followed was a remarkable archaeological story.

After centuries beneath the seabed, the surviving hull was raised in 1982, bringing with it thousands of objects that revealed details of everyday Tudor life.

Today, the Mary Rose Museum displays the remains of the ship alongside tools, weapons, clothing and personal possessions recovered from the wreck.

It's the smaller objects that make the experience particularly affecting. A wooden bowl or a sailor's shoe can reveal more about life aboard a Tudor warship than another account of kings and naval battles.

The exhibition is also an extraordinary feat of conservation. What survives of the ship has been stabilised after centuries underwater, allowing visitors to stand close to timbers that once formed part of Henry VIII's fleet.

Portsmouth isn't the same port as Southampton, where many British cruises begin and end, but the two cities are connected by frequent trains. Portsmouth Harbour station is only a short walk from the Historic Dockyard, making this an excellent pre- or post-cruise excursion.

I'd allow half a day rather than attempting to squeeze it between disembarkation and an afternoon flight. The Dockyard also houses HMS Victory and other attractions, although the Mary Rose deserves a visit in its own right.

See Portsmouth Historic Dockyard for admission and opening information.

3. Titanic, Belfast, Northern Ireland: where the world's most famous shipwreck began

There's a longstanding Belfast joke about the Titanic: she was perfectly all right when she left.

It's a fair point. The ship was designed and built at the city's Harland & Wolff shipyard, where thousands of workers helped create what was then among the largest and most sophisticated passenger liners in the world.

Her maiden voyage ended in the North Atlantic on 15 April 1912, after she struck an iceberg. More than 1,500 people lost their lives.

The Titanic Belfast attraction stands beside the original slipways and tells the story from the city's industrial development through the ship's construction, disastrous voyage and subsequent investigations.

There are recreations of shipboard interiors, accounts of the passengers and crew, and extensive exhibits about the people who built her.

Nearby, you can board SS Nomadic, the last surviving White Star Line vessel, which ferried passengers to the Titanic at Cherbourg in April 1912. Unlike the Titanic, Nomadic survived a long and eventful career, eventually returning to Belfast for preservation.

The combination offers something particularly valuable: an understanding of the Titanic as a product of an extraordinary industrial city, rather than simply the setting for one of cinema's most famous romances.

Belfast is a regular cruise destination, and Titanic Quarter is reachable by taxi or public transport from the cruise terminals. Allow several hours for the exhibition and Nomadic, particularly if you'd also like to explore the historic slipways.

Tickets and visitor information are available through Titanic Belfast.

4. Titanic, Halifax, Canada: the heartbreaking objects recovered from the sea

Across the Atlantic, Halifax tells a different part of the Titanic story.

After the liner sank, ships sailed from the Nova Scotian port to recover the bodies of those who'd died. Many of the victims were eventually buried in Halifax, leaving the city with a profound connection to the disaster.

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic preserves pieces of wooden panelling and other wreckage recovered in 1912, alongside objects associated with the passengers and the men who undertook the recovery operation.

One of the most affecting exhibits is a tiny pair of leather shoes associated with a young victim originally buried as the Unknown Child. Their story offers a far more intimate understanding of the disaster than any grand reconstruction of the ship's dining room.

The museum also examines Halifax's wider maritime history, including shipwrecks along Nova Scotia's notoriously dangerous coastline.

It's a particularly good cruise-port attraction because the museum is situated on the city's historic waterfront, within walking distance of the main cruise terminal. You can combine a visit with a stroll along the harbour, allowing a couple of hours for the exhibitions.

If you have more time, several Halifax cemeteries contain graves of Titanic victims, including Fairview Lawn Cemetery. These are places of remembrance rather than conventional tourist attractions and deserve to be approached accordingly.

Visit the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic for current exhibition information.

5. Lady Elizabeth, Falkland Islands: the shipwreck you can see from the shore

At the eastern end of Stanley Harbour, a large rusting ship rests in shallow water, her tall masts still standing against the surrounding landscape.

The Lady Elizabeth was built in Sunderland in 1879 and spent decades transporting cargo around the world. In 1913, she suffered serious damage while rounding Cape Horn and sought shelter in Stanley.

Repairs were considered too expensive, leaving the ship stranded in the harbour. For years, she served as a floating warehouse.

Then, in 1936, a fierce gale broke her moorings and carried her into Whalebone Cove, where she remains today.

It's an extraordinary sight, particularly because the wreck is still recognisably a ship rather than a collection of anonymous timbers.

The remains are exposed to the elements and continue to deteriorate, but the rusting hull and masts have become one of Stanley's most distinctive landmarks.

Cruise passengers generally arrive in Stanley by tender, and the town is compact enough to explore independently. The Lady Elizabeth lies farther along the harbour, so the best way to see her will depend on your mobility, available time and local access conditions.

A guided sightseeing excursion is a sensible option if you'd prefer not to organise transport independently. For those particularly interested in maritime history, Stanley's Historic Dockyard Museum also preserves artefacts from vessels wrecked around the Falklands.

One thing not to do is attempt to climb aboard the Lady Elizabeth. She's a deteriorating historic wreck, and getting closer isn't worth the risk. The best photographs include the surrounding harbour and the extraordinary outline of the ship against the landscape.

It's a poignant reminder of a time when sailing around Cape Horn was a formidable undertaking, and reaching the Falklands could mean abandoning not just a voyage but the vessel itself.

6. SS Kakapo, Cape Town, South Africa: the ship that mistook a mountain

Cape Town's coastline has claimed countless ships over the centuries, thanks to powerful seas, unpredictable weather and a rather unhelpful arrangement of rocks.

But few wrecks have a story quite like the SS Kakapo.

On 25 May 1900, the steamship was approaching the Cape in poor weather when its captain mistook Chapman's Peak for Cape Point. Believing he'd identified the correct headland, he ordered a turn towards what he thought was the appropriate course.

Unfortunately, he was wrong.

The Kakapo steamed straight onto the beach near Noordhoek, where it became firmly stranded in the sand. Nobody died, but the ship couldn't be refloated. More than a century later, substantial pieces of its rusting machinery remain on the shore.

It's a spectacular setting for a wreck, with a long expanse of pale sand, mountains rising behind the coast and the Atlantic stretching towards the horizon.

The remains include parts of the vessel's boiler and other machinery, providing a tangible connection to a maritime mishap that must have been enormously embarrassing for everyone involved.

The site is within Table Mountain National Park and can be reached on foot along Noordhoek Beach, approximately three kilometres each way from the main beach parking area. You'll also need road transport from Cape Town's cruise terminal, so this is an excursion requiring a substantial part of your day.

Don't undertake the walk without checking local safety conditions. The route is relatively isolated, the weather can change quickly and there have been security incidents along this stretch of coastline. A reputable local guide or properly organised outing is preferable to setting off alone.

For cruise passengers with a long day in Cape Town, it's a rewarding alternative to the city's more familiar attractions. If your sailing begins or ends here, the wreck is an even better candidate for a pre- or post-cruise excursion.

The South African National Parks website has further information about the wreck and its history.

7. Bermuda's shipwreck collection: an island built on maritime disasters

Bermuda has an extraordinary concentration of shipwrecks.

Its surrounding reefs proved particularly treacherous to sailors attempting to navigate the Atlantic, and the island's waters now contain hundreds of recorded wreck sites.

Some vessels were lost during storms. Others fell victim to navigational errors, unpredictable currents or the simple difficulty of approaching an island surrounded by shallow coral reefs.

For anyone with diving qualifications, Bermuda offers exceptional underwater archaeology. But cruise passengers can explore much of this history without going anywhere near a wetsuit.

The National Museum of Bermuda occupies a historic fortification at the Royal Naval Dockyard, where many cruise ships berth.

Its exhibitions include artefacts recovered from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century shipwrecks, from cannon and silver coins to pottery, navigational instruments and everyday objects carried aboard vessels travelling between Europe and the Americas.

These objects offer a fascinating picture of the Atlantic world during an era of exploration, trade, colonisation and slavery, including the extraordinary distances ships travelled and the people whose lives were shaped by those journeys.

Unlike an individual preserved wreck, the collection tells the stories of multiple vessels and the wider maritime history of Bermuda.

It's also remarkably convenient. If your ship docks at King's Wharf or Heritage Wharf, the museum is within the Royal Naval Dockyard complex, making it one of the easiest maritime-history excursions imaginable.

Allow a couple of hours to explore the galleries, fortifications and surrounding grounds.

For anyone tempted to collect a little piece of maritime history for themselves, a warning: Bermuda's historic wrecks and their contents are legally protected. Removing artefacts is prohibited. The souvenir shop will have to do.

How to plan a shipwreck excursion from your cruise port

One of the pleasures of visiting maritime heritage sites during a cruise is the contrast between the vessel you're travelling on and those that came before it.

Modern cruise ships have sophisticated navigation systems, satellite communications and comprehensive weather forecasting. Earlier generations of sailors often had considerably less information about the waters ahead, with sometimes catastrophic consequences.

That doesn't mean every historic wreck is conveniently located beside a modern cruise terminal, however.

Stockholm's Vasa Museum, Belfast's Titanic Quarter, Halifax's Maritime Museum and Bermuda's National Museum are particularly straightforward choices for a conventional port day. They can be reached using local transport or on foot, depending on where your ship docks.

The Lady Elizabeth in Stanley also offers a relatively accessible coastal encounter, although local transport and access conditions deserve checking.

The Mary Rose is best incorporated into a longer visit around Portsmouth and Southampton, while the Kakapo near Cape Town requires the greatest commitment in terms of travel and walking.

Before setting out, check your ship's actual berthing location, the museum's opening hours and the amount of time you have ashore. Some cruise calls are much shorter than others, and independent excursions need to leave a sensible margin for returning to the vessel.

Where a wreck remains exposed on the coastline, don't attempt to enter or climb on it. Rusting metal, unstable structures, changing tides and rough seas can make these sites dangerous.

And never remove objects from historic wrecks. Maritime archaeological sites are protected in many countries, and even seemingly insignificant fragments can contain valuable information about the past.