Kvarner Gulf Islands (Krk, Cres and Lošinj)

Croatia

A sheltered bay in the northern Adriatic between Istria and the Croatian Littoral, ringed by the islands Krk, Cres, Lošinj and Rab, with Cres in particular known for wreck, reef and cave diving.

The Kvarner Gulf lies between the Istrian peninsula and the northern Croatian mainland and is unusually deep (over 100 m in parts). Cres offers the wreck of the Lina, an Italian merchant ship sunk in a 1912 blizzard, a shallow cave dive at Beli, and reef dives near Plavnik islet. Lošinj is home to the manmade Lošinj Historical Underwater Park (Čikat Bay) and the Lošinj Marine Reserve, protecting Adriatic bottlenose dolphins. No official park-wide diving statistics exist for the gulf as a whole. Source: Wikipedia (Kvarner Gulf), justgottadive.com, unforgettablecroatia.com.