Kornati Islands

Kornati is a day out rather than a dive site round the corner. Boats run from Murter and the mainland towns, and a trip means a long ride, two dives with a surface interval between bare islands, and little ashore beyond a few seasonal konobas, so tanks, water and lunch come on the boat. Diving is permit-controlled and led by licensed operators inside designated zones, which keeps the site list short and brings the same handful of walls round again and again.

Those walls are the point. The crowns on the seaward side of the outer islands drop vertically, in places undercut, from just below the surface into open blue, and you dive them by swimming a contour with the rock on one shoulder and nothing underneath; Mana is the best known of them. The top few metres are bare sunlit limestone, then growth thickens as the light goes, with sponges and cup coral on the upper wall and gorgonians below 30 m. The inner sides offer boulder slopes and small caverns instead.

Depth discipline matters more here than skill in current, which is usually mild: the wall runs far deeper than any recreational plan, so the dive ends on your gauge rather than on the bottom. That makes the outer crowns Advanced ground, while the sheltered sides are fine for Open Water. Weather is the other variable, as the bura shuts the exposed walls at short notice and days shift to sheltered inner-side sites. It suits divers who want structure, scenery and quiet over fish action.