Balkans · about 13 km from Skopje
Vrelo (Matka)
- Max depth338 m
- CertificationIntro to cave
- Water temperature≈ ~12 °Cestimated, no reports yet
- SpecialExperienced divers
Diving and fills
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What it looks like
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Videos and posts
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Other people's footage, not advice: how someone else dives here says nothing about what suits your team. Dive within your training.
The dive
You cross Lake Matka by boat to the entrance and first swim against a strong current until you reach the mainline; further in the current eases.
Profile and sections
You cross Lake Matka by boat to the entrance and first swim against a strong current until you reach the mainline; further in the current eases. The water is ~12 °C. InDEPTH describes excellent visibility and a dive to -45 m of about two hours with deco.
Vrelo is the deepest explored underwater cave in the world. During the "Vrelo 2026" expedition, from 10 to 17 October, a team of 15 divers from North Macedonia, Poland and Italy took the known end from -287 to -338 m. The Polish cave diver Bartłomiej Pitala made the record dive, which took about nine hours. The team found two new passages and built its own underwater habitat at 8–9 m.
Practical: after rain or snowmelt visibility is 8–10 m.
- Depth and profile
- Visitors dive with the club to ~-45 m in the spring · explored to -338 m (17 Oct 2026), deeper than any other known underwater cave
- Configuration
- Open circuit (backmount or sidemount) or CCR, for cold water (~12 °C) and a long dive with deco; the club explains the procedure beforehand. Gas through CDC Vrelo: air and nitrox, helium (trimix) on request.
Who can dive where
- At least Intro to cave
- Configurations: Backmount / twinset / Sidemount / CCR
- Goes down to 338 m (trimix or deco may be needed)
- Experienced divers only
This is how the planner decides who in your team may dive this cave. Rules your own trip adds (organizer, a mail, the AI) show with your trip.
How to get there
Only with the Vrelo cave diving club (CDC Vrelo), which has permission from the Macedonian authorities to explore the cave. The club asks for an intro-to-cave or full-cave certification and more than 20 cave dives, and on arrival you sign the club's risk and liability statement. The cave is in the Matka Canyon near Skopje; the club takes you by its boat across Lake Matka to the entrance, with a dive guide of the club.
Around Vrelo (Matka)
FillsNo fill station known nearby
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News
Access and rules change: check what applies locally right before your trip. Source: GDELT Project and the news feeds of diving magazines. Search for more news ↗ Searched automatically, last on 5 Nov 2026.
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