16. PLIVAČKI MARATON RASLINA 2026

Where the Krka River slows down before opening into the Adriatic Sea, Prokljan Lake expands into a vast basin of stratified brackish water. It is here, nestled along the shores of the lake in Šibenik-Knin County, that the village of Raslina welcomes open water racers for the Plivački maraton Raslina. Founded in 2010 and organized in collaboration with Triatlon klub Šibenik, this classic Dalmatian gathering has built a dedicated community over more than a decade and a half of continuous racing. Swimmers can take on courses measuring 1,500 meters, 3,000 meters, or the premier 5,000-meter marathon, while multisport athletes can open the weekend with an aquathlon held on the eve of the main swim.

The 3,000-meter event also features as a fixture of the Dalmatian Long Distance Swimming Cup. Races are held in the heart of summer in July, when calm morning starts give way to balmy inland warmth and lake waters that become exceptionally warm during regional heatwaves. The water provides an intriguing tactile sensation: the uppermost layer is brackish and soft to swim through, a distinctive mix of river and sea that the organizers affectionately embrace as part of the event's character. Conditions across the lake basin can shift with the wind. In past editions, swimmers have encountered choppy stretches driven by the southerly jugo wind as they navigated the final approach toward the finish, or brisk gusts of strong wind, which organizers adapt to by resetting buoys into a protected triangular course.

As veteran participants note, navigating these brisk swells creates far more enduring race-day memories than an effortless glide across flat water. The event welcomes swimmers across an absolute division and a full spectrum of age categories from juniors under fifteen to masters over sixty, requiring no federation license to compete.

Prokljan Lake: the subterranean saltwater basin of the Krka

Prokljan Lake forms an unusual aquatic threshold situated about five and a half kilometers north of the coastal city of Šibenik. Far from being an ordinary freshwater reservoir, the lake is directly linked to the maritime harbor of Šibenik through the Prukljan Channel. This connection creates a fascinating two-tier marine environment. Fresh river water glides along the surface, while dense, saline seawater creeps inland along the deep basin floor, creating a bottom layer with standard sea salinity reaching around 35 parts per thousand. Gliding across the surface, swimmers pass over a dramatic and varied underwater topography. The northern margins of the lake are remarkably shallow, where strokes carry you over tranquil shoals that measure merely one to two meters in depth. Further south, the lake floor drops steeply away into an expansive aquatic trench plunging down to twenty-five meters.

From Dinara to Skradin: the waterfalls of the Krka

The cool freshwater feeding Prokljan begins far upstream at the foot of the Dinara mountain, northeast of Knin, where the Krka River bursts forth beneath the twenty-two-meter drop of the Topoljski buk waterfall. The river travels seventy-two and a half kilometers on its journey toward the sea, carving forty-nine kilometers of pure freshwater channels before meeting the brackish lower reach. From Knin down to the town of Skradin, an expanse of 111 square kilometers is preserved as a national park celebrated for pristine cascades like Roški slap. Higher up the river canyon, the flow spreads out to form Visovac Lake, an expansive water basin covering nearly eight square kilometers with depths reaching fifty-five meters.

In the center of this serene lake lies the tiny island of Visovac, which has sheltered an idyllic Franciscan monastery for centuries. Just downstream from the lake at Skradinski buk, human ingenuity met the river's power in 1895 with the construction of the Krka hydroelectric plant, recognized as one of the world's very first integrated alternating-current power systems.

The Čikola Canyon and Torak: springs and endemic fish

The Čikola Canyon is a spectacular karst gorge stretching fourteen kilometers in length and plunging to depths of 170 meters. The river takes its name from a Turkish phrase meaning "water through cliffs," reflecting the dramatic limestone ramparts that frame its path. Protected since 1965 for its diverse ecosystem and hidden underwater caves, the canyon is renowned for the colossal Torak spring, an immense karst well measuring 150 meters across and thirty meters deep where subterranean waters surface at the river junction. Two endemic freshwater fish species, Telestes tursky and Phoxinellus dalmaticus, inhabit exclusively the Krka and Čikola river systems.

St. Anthony Channel to Jadrija: guardians of the maritime entrance

The narrow St. Anthony Channel is a historic shipping lane so slender that only one large vessel can safely navigate it at a time. The formidable Fortress of St. Nicholas was erected by the Republic of Venice between 1535 and 1550. Jadrija is situated on an artificial peninsula created in the early 1920s by joining the islet of Sveti Andrija to the mainland. At the peninsula tip rises an Austro-Hungarian lighthouse built in 1871, its eastern wall uniquely adorned with medieval stone portraits from Šibenik's Cathedral of St. James. Jadrija’s public bathing area opened in August 1922 with fifty original changing cabins, establishing a cherished Dalmatian seaside tradition that makes this coast a rewarding place to linger after finishing your swim in the lake.