(Photo by dronepicr/wikimedia, CC BY 2.0)
A hole in the sky. Or in the roof, rather. This is what has given this cave its name, Zelena Špilja or in English the Green Cave. At noon, sun will shine through this small hole down to the water in the sea cave, and combined with the sea weed at the bottom of the water, a green light is created. I'm here though in the evening, but the cave is still spectacular!
There was actually three holes, the main one, a smaller one, and a tiny crack that also gave some light. The main one was beautiful, you could see the thin rock cover covered by green vegetation above, all shining in sunlight. Very pretty. But I had to wonder about the cave's future, given that the roof looked like being only few tens of centimeters thick. Some day the environmental erosion will cause pieces of the roof to come down, making the hole larger.
We got here with a speedboat tour, though, and no motor boats are allowed in the cave. This meant that I had to swim from the boat to the cave, and then inside the cave... not much, maybe 100 meters from the boat. And the cave is over 30 meters deep. In recent years I've been very nervous about swimming far from shores or the lake, given my heart problems. I guess I made an exception to see the cave :-) There was a little floating platform in the cave though, with handrails to hold on to. That gave some comfort.
The cave is on the island of Ravnik, off the shores of the bigger island, Vis. Vis in turn is a 2-3 boat ride away from the town of Split on the coast.
The cave is in these coordinates N 43.015605 E 16.224207. More reading about the Green Cave here: Wikipedia, YouTube promotional video, Nautica, Zen Travel Croatia, Diving Vis, and Explore Adriatic. We joined the Milaneze Marine tour (or one half of the tour). They are based in Komiža, and a full tour covering the day and multiple beaches in addition costs around 60€ per person. A half tour, just getting to the green cave and then back to Komiža costs around 30€. But the smaller boats from Milna near Ravnik may be an easier and more cost-effective option if you just want to see the cave, and are already in Milna or have a car to get there easily.
More photos from the cave:
(Photo by Piotr Stós, Nautica, published here)
Here's the tour boat and some rocky shorelines of Ravnik:
The tour makes you visit the Milna, Zaglav, and Budikovac beaches, even for the half tour. We also swam at Zaglav, sadly Budikovac was closed se it could only be seen, but not actually visited on. The three beaches are shown in the following pictures:
There are by the several caves on the southern shorelines of the island Vis. We visited one of them with the boat, at the approximate coordinates N 43.009955 E 16.120934, on the rocky shores near the Podhumlje village. This cave is big enough for a boat to enter, but you can't go particularly far inside. Some smaller cracks of the cave may continue further. A few pictures:
There are several others, e.g., around the Srebrna beach (see another article). And one in these approximate coordinates, also near the Podhumlje village: N 43.007470 E 16.1091617. Picture:
My previous articles about caving and underground structures on Vis include: Tito's cave, Blue Grotto on the nearby island of Biševo, Srebrna Beach caves, Dog Beach mini-caves (2nd article), underground submarine base, Mali Hum tunnels, Vis missile bases, and Zagrebenje bunkers.
Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites. Photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko, except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.
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