How Deep is Vrelo Cave?

It’s a poorly known fact about Macedonia that its small territory hides more than 340 caves. They are of different sizes, shapes and origins. Although some have been covered by the international media, their beauty and splendour are hardly known and not popularized enough, and their touristic potential is yet to be unlocked.

It is Vrelo Cave in the Matka Canyon near Skopje that has been raising the adrenalin and making the world news in the recent years. It has created a hype that might grow into a greater attention to speleology and the emergence of cave visiting as new brand of tourism in the country.

Vrelo is a system of two caves, one above and one under the water, and a lake which is 30 meters long and about four meters wide. What attracts the attention of the world-famous divers and the global media reporters is the unknown depth of the submerged cave. The bravest estimates say it may be well over 500 meters, which would make it the world’s deepest underwater cave. Over the recent years different teams of international divers and speleologists together with the local club have explored the subterrain. Each diving team reported the feeling that the cave is much deeper than they had expected. No one has felt or seen the bottom while diving as deep as they can. The registered depth of 212 meters makes it the fifth deepest in the world, the second in Europe and the deepest in the Balkans. This measurement is a result of the 2012 expedition that also discovered a gallery at the depth of 165 meters. Read more …