Dive Sites
Oključna
dive site type: nature / wreck
difficulty: easy
depth range: 0-15 m
distance from the diving center: 4.5 nm
short characteristic: a calm bay that can be accessed by a boat or on off-road car, which biggest attraction is a part of a wing of the B-24 bomber, lying at the depth of 14 m
Through the northern part of the island of Vis leads a gravel-stony road, which directs to the abandoned village of Oključna, from where visitors can drive, using an off-road car, to a bay (one of the few in this part of the island) known under the same name. In the bay there is a concrete pier, where boats can moor. Diving in this site can therefore be held from the shore and from the boat. Due to the protection from the open sea by a far ending peninsula, there are usually no waves in the bay, what makes it perfect for spending surface breaks and suitable for diving of the beginners.
Diving usually starts and ends close to the concrete pier and in the beginning is held along the western coast of the bay, along which divers might also come back or swim over the bottom and then come back to the pier or boat along the eastern coast. In the very beginning on the shallows divers can admire different little crabs living the shells left over small snails, colourful sea stars, striped red mullets finding food in sandy bottom and look for the octopuses to, after a while, reach a wall.
This vertical wall begins on the surface and goes down to the depth of about 8 m. In the holes there are hiding scorpionfish and on the plants covering rocks there are fireworms moving. After more or less twenty minutes of a dive, divers reach the biggest attraction of the diving site – lying on the depth of 14 m part of a wing of the B-24 bomber.
During World War II more than one plane ended up in the waters of Adriatic Sea, close to the strategic island of Vis. Nowadays some of the bombers are attractive dive site, some have not been found yet. The wrecks are often discovered by fishermen, whose nets are hooked against unnaturally occurring elements on the bottom of the sea. Such a net was also tangled up on the wreck of a bomber lying to the north of Vis, and a fragment of the wing was accidentally dragged by fishermen to the Oključna Bay.