Question Looking for Dive Shops in Greece, Croatia, Montenegro & Turkey

[living4experiences]

I see that there's not much traffic in this forum, but I'll give it a shot. I'll be on a cruise ship traveling in and around Greece, Croatia, Montenegro, and Turkey in September 2023. This is not a dive vacation and I've never been diving in Europe. However, Virgin Voyages (the cruise line) is offering a two-tank dive excursion in Bodrum, Turkey, that got me thinking about diving in other locations. My experience with diving through the cruise ship is that they can cancel the diving during the cruise. So, if you have a dive shop in mind for Bodrum, this would be a possible backup plan. Bodrum is the only dive excursion they are offering for the cruise. All other diving has to be arranged on my own. I'm not looking for deep wrecks, tech, rebreather, or caves...just some recreational diving to check out some critters and reefs.

Any positives or negatives to diving in this area are welcome. I'm guessing that there's A LOT of fishing that goes on in these waters, so it may not be worth the trouble. If anyone has dive shop recommendations, that would be most helpful. The specific ports I'll be in are:

Greece: Athens, Corfu, Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes
Croatia: Split & Dubrovnik
Montenegro: Kotor
Turkey: Bodrum

Thanks!

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

For Athens, I'd recommend Nautilus Dive Center in Ilioupolis (near a metro line that is super convenient). The website is https://diveinathens.gr/. The owner, Vassilis Tsiairis, offers support from open water to rebreather trimix. Stratis Kas also teaches out of there sometimes.

For the other places you list, I have no recommendations. If you were not on a cruiseship, I would suggest going to Alonissos to dive the Roman wreck, the only place in Greece where you can dive an ancient shipwreck (there is talk about opening up other sites, like the Fiskardo shipwreck (Kefalonia, near Corfu), but that's deeper than 60 meters). Fun fact. A person who contributed to opening up that for diving to the public is Dr. Vamvakas, a marine geologist professor now in Belgium who did the research for his first PhD aboard the Calpyso, and was good friends with the late Philippe Cousteau. One of his students from long ago is Dr. Ferentinos who co-led the expedtion that discovered the Fiskardo shipwreck. Another fun fact, there has never been a maritime archaeological expedition in the Ionian Sea.

 

[BFRedrocks]

I spent some time diving in Croatia (2018) and would highly recommend it. The wrecks and stuff to see are mostly a bit deeper than "traditional" diving, but still great sites to see. I was on a boat with Vranjak Diving for a few days, and then we switched to land-based diving with Trogir Diving Center. Both spots were great and the folks running the operations were very good, so you may want to contact them and see what they can offer the traveling diver.