Recent Diving Experience from Dubrovnik, Croatia

[Canyondreamer51]

New Member

Sorry if the post below doesn't belong here: moderator: feel free to move

Just thought I would open up my new membership by sharing a somewhat unusual recent diving experience from Dubrovnik, Croatia

I was in Dubrovnik, Croatia for a week long conference in mid-September this year (2011) which conveniently was held at the Palace Hotel, 3 miles outside Dubrovnik Old City, which houses one of the 2 official dive centers in Dubrovnik: Blue Planet Diving (PADI). They do the usual specialty/OW cert training and certified boat and shore dives, all from a dock that is part of the hotel grounds. Maro is the chief Dive Master and he has a staff of younger pro-divers (including his son). They do one scheduled morning 2-tank boat dive, one 2-tank afternoon, and 1-2 tank shore dives from the site and a lot of private stuff it seemed like (pretty upscale hotel)

I did 5 dives with them (dive #17-21), 2 shore dives (one night dive) and 3 boat dives. I liked diving with them a lot, especially Maro, who as I saw it was the perfect dive master. Prior to a boat dive he would draw the underwater path and the sights to take notice of on a board. We would go on a small, but adequate boat, 4-6 divers with him and an assitant max, mostly to nearby islands (Kolocep-Bezoan Island (wreck/tunnels), Graberno I. (tunnels). and Locrum I. tunnel to inland waters)) all having something different to offer. The visibility was excellent and as good as it gets, and while the fish and fauna was nothing like i.e. Hawaii, it was there and the rock and canyon formations were impressive/spetacular, making for openings and tunnels that were great to explore. On locrum I. we went through a long tunnel to what best can be described as appearing as an inland lake with people looking quite surprised when we surfaced!

We went all around Graberno Island under-water, in-and-out of small caves and tunnels. Maro would hold the hand of first-timers and share his air with air-hogs in order to make it all around!

Did a night dive that was very nice from the hotel to close to Graberno I. and back - saw some interesting critters not there during the day. The sensation of floating up-and-down in the dark with light shining on a vertical canyon wall can only be described as likened to flying up-and-down a Grand Canyon Wall!

On the last day it was very stormy. Maro had to take the little boat to a sheltered harbor, but decided to take out a shore dive with a party consisting of myself and an American DM. I asked him if he was sure I could handle it, and he felt after observing me for 4 dives that I could, he knew I was fit and not prone to panic (I am a transplant physician). We needed to throw in our BC and tank from the dock and then dive in after to put it on as it was to dangerous with the surf as it was to try to enter the water with all the gear on. Once done, we descended to 40 feet where the surf made the 3 of us oscillate in sync almost 180 DG like a pendulum. Went all the way down to 100 feet where things were calm and investigated a wreck and a cave and then returned to the dock with visibility =0 when we hit 30-20 feet due to sand movement and where his helpers on the dock grapped the equipment and BC as we discarded it, while we hung on a ladder to finally exit. Exhausting, but very rewarding, Marco was right, the only time I felt a little concerned was before entering the water seeing the white-topped surfs crashing in on the hotel wall!

All in all, I had a great experience with this diving outfit and can warmly recommend it. They are flexible, competent, the dives were great and Maro clearly knew how size up competencies (or the lack thereof) to build your confidence while teaching, but also knew when to hold divers hands, the prices pretty standard, ~75% of Hawaii prices. The rental BC/regs looked to be high quality (but I had brought all my own equipment). The only minus is, that they managed to lose my OW cert card which annoyed Maro to no end. I told him it didn't matter as I with these dives and the specialties I had under my belt qualified for an SSI specialty card!

I took both video and pictures of the dives including the storm - which when people have seen the pics/video were in awe I dived in - especially knowing of my vast diving experience - NOT!!!

I go to this meeting every 3 years, so I can't wait until going back.

[TSandM]

Great report of a place we don't usually hear about -- thank you for writing it up. Are you going to post any of the photos?

[ElChe]

Nice to read you enjoyed the Croatian Adriatic. Yes, there are much less fish than in a tropical sea. However I dived some spots with more animals but most of them are far away from the mainland. This year I had an awesome liveaboard trip to there, after a dozen trips to the Adriatic I had some very nice new experiences. If you go back years later I recommend to choose a liveaboard to see the best places.