Brioni Wreck

[Vicko]

One of my personal favorite dives, and my favorite wreck on my home island, the steamship Brioni.
Not much is know about the vessel itself, it was built in Monfalcone in the beginning of the 20th century, it survived 2 active services in both world wars, several repatriotisations, and it ended it's service on Ravnik island, 1 mile south of Vis. The cause of the sinking was never determined, neither was the exact date (02.02.1930 was the date of the report filing), possible deaths or the last owner of the ship.
I heard stories from some of the old people that it had Albanian crew and that 18 people were rescued, that indicates that it was also carrying passengers as the crew was only 8 sailor and 2 officers. The direct cause of the sinking was definitely impact with the island, the scars can still be seen on the cliffs directly above the wreck.
The wreck is considered a grave site and penetration is illegal but the interior is visible trough windows, it was carrying a cargo of winebottles (red wine is still visible inside of bottles) and probably tobacco, as you can see the bands that held the bales together.

The ship rests at 42 to 65 meters. For this dive we used trimix 18/40 ,nitrox 50 and oxygen were used for the deco. Bottom time was 30 minutes with the max depth of 75m.
We did the deco along a wall covered with soft corrals and not so friendly moray eels.

 

[NYCNaiad]

Nice!

 

[BoltSnap]

Is the Dive tourism industry developed enough for divers to come and dive in Croatia from other countries as in other dive destinations?

 

[chubadoodman]

wow. great video....the shot at 1:45 amazing.

 

[Vicko]

Is the Dive tourism industry developed enough for divers to come and dive in Croatia from other countries as in other dive destinations?

Croatia has this weird stigma around it like it's a third world country.

It's was not my intention to try to sell something trough posting this video, but here goes I can't talk for the whole of Croatia, but since I'm living and working on Vis, widely regarded as the best diving location in the Adriatic, I think it will be enough.
Vis can be a world class destination for advanced divers and a very decent one for beginners and casual divers. For advanced divers we have wrecks ranging from 2000 to 10 years old, all of them deeper then 30 meters, reefs that can rival any other in this geographical longitude, walls that go from 0 to 80 meters and are covered with soft corrals all the way trough, caves that are more or less unexplored, excellent visibility often going over 25-30 meters, during the summer season stable weather and 24C water temps, during the winter no currents and the temperatures almost never go bellow 13C

My dive center can service around 30 divers for 2 dives a day comfortably, others probably more since they have been in business for a lot longer (there are 5 of us at the moment with 12 dive boats), so the islands diving capacity is not a problem. All dive centers are tech friendly, due to there being so many dive centers on a small island the prices are competitive and service has improved a lot in the last few years since my dive center opened (before that some of the dive masters barely spoke english and the dive centers look like Shreks shack, talking donkeys included)

Out of the water the island is very rich in history and culture, we have everything from a ancient Greek necropolis, British forts from the Napoleonic wars, ww2 fortifications... Wine and olive oil that is constantly getting awards, a beach that keeps showing up in the best beaches in the worlds articles, multiple night clubs, excellent restaurants that serve local food,great apartments and ghastly hotels that have not changed since the fall of communism. Last serious crime was a death camp in ww2, very little thefts, good roads covering the whole island, 3-4 ferry's to the coast, a international airport that is 20 minutes away from the ferry's by bus, state of the art medical center built 3 years ago, helicopter transport to a hospital that takes 20 minutes in case of serious injury (including a hyperbaric chamber)
Our biggest flaws are a) Stupid laws that only allow dive centers to dive specific areas, so no liveaboards.
and b) People keep asking if we have running water and electricity, and yes we do, running water for the last 2000 years and electricity for the last 90

I

 

[BoltSnap]

Awesome, I live in Libya and it would be great if I can and visit you to dive one of these days. We have great diving here in Libya but no infrastructure at all.

Please send me your contact information with your center's website address. I need to stay in touch with you.