Split or Dubrovnik best for non-cave/confined diving please?

[rachelcbaker]

Hi there

thank you in advance for any tips / thoughts that anyone has.

My 15 yr old and I would like to get a couple of days diving in before joining a group holiday in Croatia in August. We are both UK-qualified PADI (and i have done an SSI refresher as until last year i had not been diving for nearly 20 years). Neither of us can manage cave or confined dives (both tried last year in Gozo, and I also had a very bad experience in a US cave dive which was main reason i stopped diving at all).

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether Split or Dubrovnik might be better for the "open" kind of dives we enjoy? I have been looking online and Dubrovnik seems to suggest more cave dives then around Split / Solta / Brac kinds of area. As we only have two days and then need to get to Omis on the mainland we need somewhere fairly close to either Split or Dubrovnik airports.

Thank you!
Rachel

 

[paddydiver]

The beautiful town of Trogir is very near to Split airport (much nearer then Split itself) and you can do easy day trip dives from there. Its not the best Croatia has to offer but still pretty good and they will have some easy shallow sites. Omis is also much closer to Split, so with limited time I would rule out Dubrovnik. Depending on arrival time, you could also get a bus from the airport to Split a ferry to supetar in Brac and then dive there, It's possible to join a day tour to Omis from Supetar to avoid back tracking to Split.

My advice would be stay in Trogir and dive from there. Get the bus from Trogir to Omis. You might need to change bus in Split but it's the same bus station.

 

[BennyLi0n]

I can also recommend Trogir. Stayed there last year for two weeks and went diving with Trogir Diving Center which I also can recommend

 

[rachelcbaker]

thank you both - much appreciated!

 

[Still Kicking]

Too late for the OP but maybe helpful for future visitors to Croatia. I dove a couple of days with Blue Planet in Dubrovnik and I was very impressed with the house reef, aka Little Africa. Really nice walls, tunnels, swim throughs etc. and more fish than I had seen elsewhere in Croatia. Still not teeming with life but I found some small morays, small schools of fish, a parrot fish, some lion fish (bah!), fireworms, christmas tree worms etc. ... I saw more life than all the other places I dove/freedived up and down the coast.

Dive staff at Blue Planet were excellent and accommodating. I highly recommend the shop.

On a side note, Croatia is an incredible country top side and the natural beauty/historical interest make it worth a visit even if the diving is less than overwhelming.