Liveaboard Diving in Croatia aboard the Vranjak

[Klaus]

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I’ve been hesitating for a while to post this trip here – UW-photography was not the prime focus here. But what the heck, it may be of interest to some. We had never done a liveaboard trip before and I thought that we should try something “easy” at first. The Vranjak is operating along the Dalamatian coast & archipelago in Croatia. There are very few liveaboards around there, we only met one other in the harbor once because of bad weather. So, wherever we were diving, we were the only boat on the site. That said, Croatia is not within the coral triangle, neither is it known for aggregations of Manta rays. But from southern Germany, the Cech republic and in particular Austria and Slovenia it is very easy to reach by car – and that may be a good compromise.

Why is it an easy start for the boating experience? First of all, the sea is calm in between the numerous Croatian islands. Furthermore, the boat will stop in a harbor every evening, so the night is especially calm and you can also go for a stroll in the lovely villages or jump in for a swim close by. Here’s a view of Sali on the island of Dugi

Otok:

This was a diving trip but also sightseeing, and there were couples aboard with only one of them scuba-diving. We all really enjoyed the starry sky while anchoring for the night at a remote Kornati island.

 

The boat is nice and we were comfortable but of course I have no point of comparison. The dive operation was fairly “hands off” – we had a briefing for each site, some security instructions on the first day but other than that were left to do as we wished. Fine for us (we dive together in the quarries at home as well) but for beginning divers I recommend inquiring about guides before reserving. The boat is often booked in full charter by travel agencies, which then sell the spaces on their trip. Some bring their own dive masters along, hence this can be different on a different trip (trips start on a Saturday and last for a week).

It is by no means a photo-centric endeavor: No dedicated camera room, not a whole lot of extra space on the dive-deck and no rinse bucket for the rig – I could hose it down with freshwater, though. That said, I knew this before reserving, the crew was familiar with handing down a camera and they certainly made every effort to help me along. I have a M43 camera in a small polycarbonate housing, thus I do not need all that much space and it worked out well for me.

    

 

So, what’s there to see?

Croatia has a good number of wrecks and we dove the “Ledenik”, a former swimming fish-factory that capsized in 2008 on a calm day with no waves. Sometimes strange things happen in between these islands, and this incident even occurred magically to rest the boat at a perfect diving depth of max. some 20-ish meters deep. You can find different versions of the story on the web and I don’t know which one of those ended up in the insurance files…

 

We were a bit limited by the weather and the captain could not always reach the best sites on the tour (Kornati islands tour). The zone between 10 and 30 meters depth is essentially sterile and the shallow areas are a mix of seagrass and rocks with some invertebrates but really not a lot of fish.

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Deeper down (i.e. below 30 or even 35 meters), when we could get to the sites with vertical cliffs, life starts to re-appear: Gorgonians, sponges, and even some fish.

 

 

 

 

The trip pairs quite nicely with an additional week on the Dalmatian coast, if you can spare the time. The Vranjak operates out of a smaller harbor right next to the ancient City of Zadar and if you hop a bit further south you can reach destinations like Trogir or Split. Here’s the “signature view” of downtown Zadar, at the site of where the forum was during the Roman period.

Once again, this trip was not only about diving and rightfully so – I would not qualify the dives as “spectacular”, but not boring either. I suppose others on this forum can say a bit more about diving in Croatia. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip and I did get to take a few shots, both above and below the waterline. However, if you are looking for a die-hard photography trip, then this may not be a good fit for you.

 

[humu9679]

@Klaus Thank you. That was a nice report. The diving looks good. 

[Cromagnon]

Thank you for the trip report.  It is interesting to read of other places to dive that are not tropical.  The diving does look good and the topside diversions are worthy of your time as well.

[Klaus]

Thanks for the positive comments! Regarding „the diving looks good“: The UW pics are of course „representative“ i.e. a „best of“ my shots. Fortunately my photography is limiting so the diving is indeed quite OK. I think of this as well worth my time BECAUSE I don‘t need to go half way around the planet to get there. However, I would not recommend traveling from very, very far just to dive in the Adriatic sea. A combined sightseeing, culture + diving trip can be a different story of course.

[Architeuthis]

Thank you for this interesting report, Klaus...👍

 

In the old days (before 2000) I have been twice for a week on the old Vranjak and it was fantastic and outstanding. Later there appeared a new boat, the Vranjak II (maybe this is th erecent Vranjak) and now it seems even the operator has changed. We certainly will book a trip in the near future (as far as I know one should reserve a place optimally 2 years in advance, I guess the scedule for 2025 is pretty full 😊).

 

We go to the Adriatic at least twice a year (for us it is aprox. 4h driving by car). Especially the corals (e.g. in Vis and Kornati islands) easily compete with any other destination. The Anthias colonies at red Gorgonia fields (alomost) beat the Red Sea, but one must go at least 30m, better pretty deeper, to see the beauty. Macro motifs, like nudies, are beautiful and abundand. As Klaus writes, it may not be a favorite destination for people coming from far away, but for people living close...

 

=> Also complete charter is available, if made well in advance, maybe one of us should organize a special UW-photographer safari (best time is second week in September - first week in October, then 7mm semidry is sufficient)?

 

 

Wolfgang

 

[Klaus]

Indeed, this was the Vranjak II and it is now run by the son of the former captain. If fact, dad joined us on the trip as an additional hand because of the weather (see below).

We went during the second week of September and a 7mm semi-dry was more than sufficient, I ended up diving without gloves down to, ahem, 40 m or so. The weather has been more extreme recently, the sea is warmer, more humidity in the air - we all know the story. This is most noticeable at the end of summer. During our trip there was one day where we couldn‘t dive at all because it was too risky to take the boat out of the harbor. Instead, they ordered cabs that took us to a regional park for a bit of hiking on the cliffs of Dugi Otok. We had nice weather for that, but there were other places really close-by that were hit by a Tornado and had cars washed down the village streets. 
In essence, I guess the captain took the right decision, plus he did not leave us with a simple deck of cards and this was smart. However, I think the best season may therefore be August nowadays. It might be fun to organize a tour with that boat, but it was really not conceived with photography in mind. I can‘t compare it with anything else, but some other guests said that the liveaboards are slightly more spacious elsewhere. Gut feeling: This is OK for anything ranging from a GoPro, housed smartphone etc. up to a small MFT rig (think Backscatter „Octo“ class). But the full-frame behemoths I have seen on other occasions might be challenging, especially if there‘s more than one aboard.

[Klaus]

Crossing over to "Critter Identification" now. You mentioned corals - which I am surprised to hear about for Croatia (except the Gorgonians). I have this picture:

 

But that is not a coral - right? It was taken quite shallow, like 8 or 10 m if I remember right.

Would anyone know what kind of a critter this is?

[Architeuthis]

13 hours ago, Klaus said:

But that is not a coral - right? It was taken quite shallow, like 8 or 10 m if I remember right.

Would anyone know what kind of a critter this is?

 

This is indeed a stone-coral, one of the few ones in the Mediterranean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladocora_caespitosa

 

With "corals" I mean the class of Anthozoa ("Blumentiere" in German). These animals are really beautiful in the Adria. Also Gorgonia belong to this group. This September we were able to see/photograp even a precious coral (Corallium rubrum) in the Kornati national park at quite shallow depth of approx. 33m (they are almost extinct at recreational divers depths)...

 

Is the new owner the son of Jani (his name was Tommi)? Jani was the previous operator, he also made the guide aboard the old Vranjak. Or is it the son of the previous captain (I cannot remember his name just now)?

[Klaus]

Thanks for the info. The owner is Tomos (likely Tommi), he also served as the captain and guided the whole group on one of the dives. I do not remember his father’s name.