Budva
A PADI dive school: introductory dives, courses, guided boat dives and snorkelling, with at most four divers per guide.
Montenegro's seabed is rocky and clear, with walls, caves and tunnels, and wrecks from both world wars. At the mouth of the Bay of Kotor, by the island of Mamula, the Austro-Hungarian steamer Tihany lies at 40 metres. Around Budva and Sveti Stefan there are shallower reefs and a minesweeper wreck suited to first dives, while near Bar are Mikovića cave and deep sites for technical divers. Visibility at these sites ranges from 10 to 25 metres.
Where to dive in Montenegro: the Tihany wreck at the mouth of the Bay of Kotor, the Blue Cave, a minesweeper off Sveti Stefan and Mikovića cave near Bar.
What lies below
The Adriatic off Montenegro has no coral reefs of the tropical kind. The seabed is rocky, with steep walls, caves and tunnels covered in sponges, sea fans and algae, while octopus, lobster and shoals of fish live among the rocks. A local dive centre quotes visibility of 10 to 25 metres at their sites and water temperatures at depth of 16 to 23 °C.
The mouth of Boka: Tihany and Žanjice
The best-known wreck is the Tihany, an Austro-Hungarian passenger and cargo steamer built in Trieste in 1908 and 45.4 metres long. It carried oil and coal along the Adriatic, and on 12 February 1917 it ran aground in bad weather and sank near the island of Mamula. Today it lies in one piece on a sandy bottom at 40 metres and is meant for divers with Advanced Open Water and Deep Diver certification.
In Žanjice bay, at up to 25 metres, lies a Yugoslav Navy patrol boat built in 1952 and sunk as a target during a military exercise, open to Open Water divers. Luštica also has the Blue Cave (Plava špilja), between Zlatna luka bay and Cape Mokra gora: the water inside is up to five metres deep, and the blue is at its most striking once you dive.
Did you know?
The aircraft lying at 54 metres off Čanj beach was long thought to be an Italian military plane, but turned out to be a German Junkers Ju 88 twin-engine bomber from the Second World War.
Budva and Sveti Stefan
The Budva Riviera is a good place for first dives. Off Sveti Stefan, on a sandy bottom at up to 24 metres, lies the wreck of a minesweeper about 30 metres long, a popular first wreck dive. Shallow reefs with tunnels down to 12 metres suit beginners. Dive clubs operate in Budva, Pržno, Sveti Stefan and Petrovac.
Bar: caves and deep sites
Near Bar there is a shallow reef suited to beginners and Mikovića cave on the south side of Volujica, near Bigovica bay. The entrance is at 7–8 metres, the cave is 150 metres long, and its left branch follows a steel guide line to the end, where fresh, cold water from a siphon forms a small lake. Off Bigovica there are amphora sites from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC and an 18th-century sailing ship with two bow cannons, and deeper down lie Second World War aircraft, for technical divers only.
