Island of Krapanj

Hotel Spongiola is situated on the small island of Krapanj and is only 400 m away from the mainland. There is no vehicle traffic on the island.

For arrival contact hotel reception at the 022 348-900 or 091 333 7505

Arrival at the dock in front of the “Zlatna Ribica” restaurant or at the dock Krapanj, 150 m away. There is a ferry line from the dock Krapanj.

Cars can be parked at the guarded parking-lot 3km away from the “Zlatna Ribica” restaurant.

GRATIS transport from the parking lot to the dock by hotel van

GRATIS transport to Hotel “Spongiola” by boat

ARRIVAL BY CAR

INFORMATION

By calling HAK (The Croatian Automobile Club) at +385 1 4640 800 you can obtain the information about situation on roads, fuel prices, highway tolls etc.
Info center is open 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Detailed information can also be found : www.hak.hr

ROAD ASSISTANCE

By calling phone number 987 you can require repairs of the vehicle failure on the road, removal and transportation of disabled vehicles and vehicles damaged in car accidents.
These services are charged according to the HAK price list.

HAK AK Šibenik
Petra Grubišića 9, Šibenik
tel: +385 22 219 644

AK Zadar
Zrinsko-Frankopanska 16, Zadar
tel: +385 23 315 365

Sponge diving

A 300-year-long Tradition

THE HISTORY OF SPONGE DIVING AND HARVESTING
The legend says that a certain friar Antun, a Greek from the Island of Crete, taught the inhabitants of Krapanj how to harvest sponges at the beginning of the 18th century (around 1704). He also brought the art of sponge processing to the island. The harvested sponges were exported to Venice at that time. The sponge harvesting was first done by harpooning from the boats, a technique used by some of the sponge fishermen of Krapanj until the 1960s and 1970s. Such skilled sponge fishermen are very rare today, but there are also no sponges to be found at the depths that you can see and where the harpoon can reach.

Sponge harvesting was the exclusive and profitable activity of the inhabitants of the island of Krapanj. For this activity, they used fishing boats weighing 4-5 tons and until 1893 they harvested sponges exclusively using harpoons; they could reach the depth of 15 meters underwater. Each boat had a crew of two men: the harpooner locally called “svicar” and the rower locally called “sijavac”. The yield was divided between the harpooner and the rower. The harpooner used to get half of the yield, the rower, and the boat each a quarter. If the harpooner also happened to be the owner of the boat, he was entitled to two-thirds of the yield, and the rower to only one. Harvesting with harpoons was not the most profitable way of sponge harvesting since it was possible only when the sea was calm. Besides, the sponges were damaged by the harpoons and, as they were scraped off the seafloor, the new generations of sponges were destroyed in the process.

During the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the government in Trieste made efforts to promote the sponge industry. In 1893, it presented the sponge cooperative in Krapanj with the first diving apparatus and a new one in 1896. This caused a conflict between the harpooners and the sponge divers.

Since ancient times and the very beginnings of the sponge business in Krapanj, the sponge fishermen from Krapanj had gone through various crises. The main cause of these crises was the limited number of sponge beds, the fact that was especially marked at the time when diving apparatus and motorboats were first used in sponge harvesting. The area where the best sponges could be found is limited. With the application of the new diving equipment, the available resources were soon used up.

During the years before the Second World War until the 1950s and 1960s, there were 15-20 diving teams in Krapanj comprised of 7 or 8 team members.

In 1956, the fate of the sponge business on the island of Krapanj was almost sealed. The sponge fishermen had committed to a project that proved to be a failure. Six equipped teams left on a sponge harvesting mission along the coasts of Egypt. After this effort had proved unsuccessful, and the teams had returned home, the “Spuzvar” Company was shut down. The number of sponge divers started to decrease rapidly so that in 1968 there were only 11 of them.