Mooring at Vis, Kut and Komiza: one island, two harbours, opposite weather.

Captain Ron shore sheet

Warnings first, because that is the job

Vis is the furthest inhabited Croatian island from the mainland, so you cross real open water to get there and the wind gets a proper run at you. When Kev asked on 15 June 2026 whether to leave Marina Agana for Vis Town that day, the honest answer was workable but not a casual glass-off run: expect open-water chop on the Split Gate and the Vis approach, generally around 0.3 to 0.6 m, with an afternoon W/NW sea breeze and gust risk stacked on top.

Three instructions came with that call and all three are reusable:

• Leave early. At 5.5 knots, the run we planned at roughly 30 to 35 nm takes 5.5 to 6.5 hours plus approach time, so a 07:00 departure lands you in early afternoon before the W/NW breeze has finished building.
• Reef and secure before you reach exposed water, not after you have noticed you should have.
• Do not tow the tender across. Davits, deck, or deflate and lash. Towing a dinghy into a building sea breeze is a way of donating a dinghy to the Adriatic.

The three-day picture for that leg is a decent template for the crossing in general. Wednesday: GO but breeziest, afternoon W/NW 8 to 12 knots gusting 17 to 21, sea 0.3 to 0.5 m. Thursday: GO with a good daytime window, W/NW mostly 4 to 8 gusting 10 to 14, sea 0.15 to 0.4 m, but avoid a late arrival because the sea builds in the evening. Friday: calmest, 2 to 7 knots, gusts mostly under 15, sea 0.1 to 0.25 m. Morning is always the answer on this crossing.

And the one nobody warns you about until it bites: fresh water is genuinely limited on Vis. Komiza's official port tariff states in writing that, because of the island's limited drinking-water resources, tourist vessels cannot request water as of right. Vis Town publishes its own formal decision restricting water supply to vessels. Arrive with full tanks.

Quick verdict

Vis is the one island where "which side are you on" is a navigational question rather than a social one. Vis Town and Kut sit at the head of a large protected bay on the north-east coast: sheltered, historic, walkable, and where the fuel and the errands are. Komiza is on the west coast under Hum: prettier, wilder, and exposed to exactly the wind that ruins it. And to save you the search — the port operator says it plainly — no marina has ever been built on Vis. It is town rivas, laid moorings and buoy fields, and that is a large part of the appeal.

Where we actually went

Kev's public log has it plainly: a couple of nights near Kut, the old quarter on the south-east side of Vis harbour, then round to Komiza. On 6 June 2026 Captain Ron moved the daily weather job to Komiza on the west coast of Vis, at 43.0447°N, 16.0931°E, which lands within a couple of hundred metres of the published harbour position. Somebody in this partnership was enjoying himself.

Vis also sat in the middle of the plan on paper: the final Croatia-to-Malta passage plan ran Marina Agana to Vis Town to Lastovo and then down the boot to Valletta, about 12 legs and 627 nm at a 5.5 knot planning speed. Vis was leg two of a very long list.

Arrival notes: read first

The approach to Vis harbour

Vis Town sits at the head of a large bay on the north-east coast, sheltered by the islet Host and the Prirovo peninsula, which carries a conspicuous monastery surrounded by vineyards. The bay was the medieval Harbour of St George. The town is really two settlements — Vis and Kut — strung along the south side and joined into one by a long waterfront promenade, which is why "a couple of nights near Kut" and "a couple of nights in Vis Town" are the same postcode and a very different evening.

• There are no dangers in the immediate approach provided you pass clear of the rocky reefs north-west and north-east of the entrance. They carry white concrete light towers. Identify them before you need them.
• Depths in the inlet run over 35 m until you round Prirovo, then drop to 8 to 10 m, and 2.5 to 3.8 m along the town quay.
• Shelter can be found somewhere in the bay in virtually all conditions, but in very strong east or south-east that somewhere is the lee of the peninsula rather than the quay. There is also anchoring room immediately off the rivas as overflow.
• Approximate positions: harbour 43°03'N, 016°11'E; Kut quay about half a mile east of the town quay.

Costs, published: Gradina Vis publishes an official port tariff. The 2025 table runs from €20 a day for boats up to 10 m, €35 for 10.01 to 15 m, €50 for 15.01 to 20 m and upward from there. That price includes mooring and unmooring, electricity, drinking water, waste reception and the sanitary facilities. Catamarans pay double, and there is a 20% discount in April, May and October. Check the current year's table rather than ours.

Komiza: beautiful, and honest about it

Komiza sits at the north-east end of a wide bay on the west coast, under Hum at 587 m, on whose slopes sits the wartime hideaway of Tito's partisans. Stone houses crowd the waterfront, a Venetian fortress sits on the quay, and the mountain looms behind. It is the prettiest harbour on the island and the one with the clearest structural weakness.

• The long breakwater at the south end of the bay is quayed along its whole length with laid moorings, water and electricity, taking yachts up to 3 m draft. Depths run 2.0 m at the root to about 5.0 m at the end, with the harbour itself 3.0 to 8.0 m and up to around 10 m.
• Visitor buoys are laid north of the breakwater and on the east side of the bay in 6.0 to 8.0 m. Shelter on them is good except in W and SW, when the breakwater berths are marginally better.
• Do not anchor in the harbour without an anchor marker. The harbour bed is covered with mooring tackle and you will find it with your chain.
• Manoeuvring warning: there are rocks inshore of the moorings on the east side of the harbour, and considerable swell rolls in with S and SW winds — leave real space between the boat and the jetty.
• Nauticki centar Komiza also runs two organised buoy anchorages nearby, Pol Guspu and Lucica, where assistance from an authorised officer is mandatory and included in the price. Water and electricity are not included.
• Approximate position 43°02.7'N, 016°05.4'E, with the breakwater quay just to the south-west.

Fuel, water and officialdom

• Fuel is at Vis Town only. The INA station listed as Vis is at Setaliste stare Isse 24, around 43.0634°N, 16.1857°E, in the port near the ferry terminal, published as open 07:00 to 21:00 every day, station phone 091 4971 255, with vessels fuel supply listed among its services and about 2.5 m alongside. Blue marine-taxed eurodiesel is available.
• No fuel berth at Komiza. We found none listed on any Adriatic fuel-station index. Sort diesel on the Vis Town side before you go round.
• Harbourmaster, Vis: Setaliste Stare Isse 6, 21480 Vis. Tel +385 21 711 111, li-vis@pomorstvo.hr. Office 07:00 to 15:00, public counter 08:00 to 13:00 with a break 11:00 to 11:30, closed weekends and public holidays.
• Harbourmaster, Komiza: Riva Sv. Mikule 3, 21485 Komiza. Tel and fax +385 21 713 085, li-komiza@pomorstvo.hr. Same hours.
• VHF: we could not find a published working channel for either town port on an official source, so there is not one printed here. Ring the port office. Guessing a channel is how you end up shouting at nobody.

Anchorages around the island

• Stoncica — the standard bolt-hole and the one anchorage with a proper official description. Sandy bottom, roughly 150 m across, 5 to 6 m in the southern part, and Cape Strazine knocks down the tramontana and the afternoon maestral swell. Good in everything except bura and the northerly quarter. Concession run by Gradina Vis.
• Rogacic and Parja — on the south-west corner, shelter from S, W and SW, with Parja the better hole of the two. Bura raises a sea in the Rogacic arm.
• Rukavac — good from N, W and NW, with the islet Ravnik knocking down some south-easterly swell, but the quay is a poor place to be in a jugo.
• Stiniva — the famous slot cove. It is not an anchorage. Entering the cove by boat is not permitted; anchor outside the entrance in settled weather and swim or dinghy in. It has been a protected significant landscape since 1967.
• Srebrna — sources disagree on both the bottom and the shelter, so we are not going to pretend. Treat it as a settled-weather swim stop.
• There is an official Pravilnik o redu u luci covering the Budikovac, Ravnik and Rukavac anchorages. If you plan to use them, read it rather than guess.

The caves, and the rules people get wrong

The whole group has been the Vis Archipelago UNESCO Global Geopark since April 2019 — Vis, Bisevo, Sveti Andrija, Brusnik, Jabuka and Palagruza, some 666,100 hectares of it. Several individual features have been protected monuments of nature since the 1950s and 60s. The two caves everyone asks about have completely different rules, and this is the single most useful thing on this page.

Medvidina spilja on Bisevo, at 160 m, is the longest sea cave in the Adriatic and has been a protected monument since 1967. Brusnik and Jabuka are further out, exposed, and a long way from help — settled weather and a good forecast only.

Get ashore

Vis has a strange and excellent history. It was a heavily fortified Yugoslav military base closed to foreign visitors until 1989, and the army did not leave entirely until 1992. That closure is precisely why the island is less developed and less trampled than its neighbours, and it left roughly 20 km of tunnels, bunkers and a secret submarine base behind. Then in 2017 a film crew turned up and shot Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again here, with Vis standing in for the fictional Greek island of Kalokairi and locations in both Vis Town and Komiza. The island un-preserved itself slightly that summer.

• Kut is the oldest and prettiest part of Vis Town, and where we spent our nights. Renaissance houses, a quieter quay, and most of the island's restaurants within walking distance.
• Tito's Cave on the way up Hum is two caves reached by stone steps from the road. Tito sheltered here from June to October 1944, running the diplomatic negotiations with the Allies from a hole in a mountain. Worth the walk for the view alone.
• Fort George above Vis Town was built by the British under Colonel Robertson in 1812, working with three Martello towers to keep the French out of the harbour.
• The Komiza Fishermen's Museum is in the Komuna, the Venetian fortress on the Komiza waterfront built in 1585, and holds a replica of the local gajeta falkusa fishing boat. Riva Svetoga Mikule 4.
• Konoba Jastozera in Komiza is on the record as one of Kev's stops, hashtag and all. It is built out over an old lobster pen, does lobster about seven different ways, and has berths for guests arriving by sea. Nobody has ever claimed it was a cheap evening.
• Provisioning is better on the Vis Town side. Do the shop where the ferry lands.

Getting crew on and off

Jadrolinija runs the car ferry Split to Vis on line 602, about 140 minutes, plus line 659 which threads Split to Bol on Brac, Stari Grad on Hvar and then Vis. Krilo runs a catamaran from Split via Milna and Hvar to Vis. Nothing scheduled goes to Komiza by sea — the connection is the bus from Vis Town, timed to ferry arrivals. Tell your guests that before they book a taxi boat they cannot get.

Crew missions

Captain Ron bottom line

Cross in the morning, do not tow the tender, arrive with full water tanks, and be tied up by early afternoon or expect to improvise. Then use the island properly: Vis Town and Kut for shelter, fuel, dinner and a quiet night; Komiza for the view, the lobster and the swagger, but only when there is nothing westerly with weight in it. Two harbours, four miles apart as the gull flies, with completely opposite opinions about weather. That is not a complication. That is a gift, as long as you read the forecast before you pick.