This snorkelling site is located at the very tip of the Lanterna peninsula, below the Rt Zub lighthouse. A well-kept walking path winds through groves of holm oak all the way to the outermost point of the peninsula.

General

At the site, next to the lighthouse, there is a car park and a narrow path leading to a spacious paved sun deck. In clear weather and when the bura blows, from this spot you can see the Italian Alps covered in eternal snow, while across the water the view opens onto the walls of Novigrad and the mouth of the Mirna River.

To enter the sea you can use the two sets of steps on the western side of the sun deck, or you can walk across the plateau beneath the lighthouse to reach the underwater reef that juts out like a submerged hillock right by the shore.

As this is the outermost point of the peninsula, an abundance of small fish circles in every direction. Shoals of wandering fish such as grey mullet and garfish pass by in great numbers. The sea here is clear and clean, and the rocky bottom slopes gently into the depths.

The underwater world

The most interesting part to explore is precisely the stretch between the lighthouse and the stone steps. It is enough to follow the shoreline, which borders the beach like a sunken wall. In the shaded sections the walls are overgrown with red algae of a beautiful wine-red colour, while green cascades of tiny algae adorn every crevice. If you move a little away from the edge of the beach, you will notice that the bottom is dotted with rocky boulders and sandy channels. It is covered with small forests of algae and sponges of various sizes, the most striking being the yellow sulphur sponges. Sea sponges are also known as the "cleaners of the sea", because they feed by filtering seawater.

Swimming along the shore towards the lighthouse you will reach an underwater hillock that rises impressively from the bottom almost to the surface. Its walls are overgrown with brown and green algae, and in small hollows bivalves hide, along with the round crab (granciporro), which you will easily recognise by its firm, smooth, chocolate-coloured shell. The hillock teems with fish such as baraj, annular seabream and salema of an almost golden hue. At the foot of the hillock small stones gather, together with the remains of shells of bivalves, crabs and sea snails.

Bivalves and sea snails

Throughout the site you can find a large number of turban snails, which owe their name to the rounded shell coiled like a turban. Its shell is often overgrown with algae, and it is remarkable for the beautiful operculum with which it protects itself from predators. It resembles an orange porcelain button and was used all along the coast as jewellery or a protective amulet.

Here too lives the banded dye-murex, a snail with a robust, spiralling shell covered in knobbly, purplish-grey growths, known since the time of the Phoenicians, who used it to obtain the precious purple dye they traded across the Mediterranean. It was after this pigment that the ancient Greeks called them "the purple ones" (Greek Phoíníkes), and later the Romans took over the production of purple dye from them on our shores.

The site abounds in Noah's ark shells (also known by their Latin name Arca noae) and small black scallops resembling fans. Their shells are scattered across the whole area. The rocky bottom is full of hiding places for smaller fish such as the rainbow wrasse, which you will recognise by its blue colour and orange lateral stripe, and the kosirica, with its brown, marbled pattern.

Rt Zub through history

It is worth noting that throughout history Rt Zub had great importance as a landmark at a key strategic junction – the mouth of the Mirna River. Since prehistoric times two main transport routes have met here. The first is the sea route along the western Istrian coast, and the second the sea-and-river route which once led along Istria's largest river into the heart of central Istria.

Historical sources mention Rt Zub as part of the shipping route by which dangerous reefs were avoided and ships were guided into the port of Mirna of the time, known for exporting timber, stone, wool, oil and wheat. Shallow-draught cargo ships sailed it right up until the Second World War.

We can only imagine how many Roman galleys with their colourful sails, and later frigates, passed in front of this cape along our oldest sea route…