We’ve done many sea kayak trips, most near our home on the west coast of British Columbia. In 2023, we decided to try something different: a week of sea kayaking in Croatia tacked onto our trip to Italy. We’d heard that sea kayaking in Croatia was very good and we booked a guided trip with Adria Adventure based out of Dubrovnik. After a month in Italy, we took the short flight from Rome to Dubrovnik.
An Adria representative picked us up at the airport and drove us to the Dubrovnik port. From there we took a 45-minute ferry ride to the village of Lopud on Lopud Island. We spent four nights at a very nice guest house there. After three days of paddling out of Lopud, we paddled north to Šipan Island where we spent three nights in an equally nice apartment in the village of Suđurađ with two more days of paddling.
Mladen Kalan (aka “Spiky”) was our very capable and friendly guide. Normally there are up to eight clients per guide but, since it was early October (late season), there was only one other client, Kirsten from Oslo, Norway. The three of us were similar in experience, interests, and stamina. We made a good team and had a lot of fun together.
There are three main islands in the Elaphiti group: Lopud, Šipan, and Koločep. We paddled around all three during our six days of kayaking. We were lucky to have almost perfect weather all day, every day.
In comparison to the British Columbia coast, we saw few birds and little sea life. There was no intertidal life, perhaps because there are almost no tides in the Mediterranean Sea!
What we did see that we don’t see on our kayaking trips at home were charming villages with long histories and a deep sense of culture. Those villages, the people living there, and our team made this a very enjoyable and special trip for us. Adria Adventure and our guide Spiky were excellent. We will likely do more kayaking trips in the Mediterranean.
After the kayaking trip, we spent three and a half days in Dubrovnik. This was very interesting as we had little knowledge of Dubrovnik’s long history. Some Dubrovnik photos are included below.
Here is a four minute, somewhat shaky video showing parts of our trip.
Now the photos. If you expand the photo viewer to full page the “Adventures” menu will stop working. This is because of technical issues with the website software. Refresh the web page. The “Adventures” menu will then work properly.