Jezera & Tisno

Rick and Amie diving from shore in Tisno
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The four of us had booked 3 days of scuba diving  and accomodations in an apartment on the island of Murter near Kornati National Park. All 4 of us had completed our PADI course and pool sessions in Canada, and only needed to complete 4 open water dives to get our PADI certification for scuba diving. It turned out the dive centre we had originally booked with wasn't open yet for the season (we were ahead of the tourist season in Croatia by at least 3 weeks). There was much confusion (and stress!) over where we were booked in for diving, which apartments were booked for us and where to go and how to get there - but it all worked out really well in the end. The owner of the apartments in the town of Jezera was very hospitable and thankfullly she drove us to the Dive Centre in Tisno each morning (only a five minute commute by car).

Pavel the Czech Dive Master
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The weather was cold and rainy for our first day of scuba diving. The wind was fierce and our Dive instructor decided it would be best if we did our diving on shore rather than off a boat. The Dive master was Pavel, from the Czech republic. This hulking Czech was less than impressed with our dive skills after that first day - we were rusty! We had bouyancy issues and kept stirring up and disturbing the sand on the bottom. Ooops.

Pavel thought it would be wise to do a couple more dives from shore before heading out on the boat, so we suited up again the next day and did 2 more dives. The sun was out and the water was calm - this made for a more enjoyable diving experience and we were much more comfortable underwater - and Pavel was happy with our progress too!!

Kristin and OJ diving - yes, the water is that colour!
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The apartment we stayed in was super nice and we went shopping at the local market and cooked supper each night.

Our third day of diving was off a dive boat - with about 20 other divers, all Czech and all experienced. Needless to say, we felt a little out of place. We went out to the Kornati islands which are very bare and stark, apparently the Romans harvested all the trees for lumber to build ships and nothing has ever grown there since due to erosion. Yikes. On our last 2 dives, we saw thousands of fish and a sleeping octopus - mission accomplished!!!

On a walking trail between Tisno and Jezera
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Turns out we were Pavel's first english speaking students, and the first Canadians to dive with him ever. That was pretty cool.