Novalja is a town that makes sense from the sea. Stand on the shore and you get pebbles, pines and a strip of blue. Push off from it — in a kayak, on a board, in a little rented boat — and the whole island rearranges itself: white cliffs you never knew were there, sea caves, coves with no road to them, and the Velebit mountains rising straight out of the water on the far side of the channel. If you only ever see Pag from a sunbed, you are missing half of it.
Here is what is actually worth doing on the water around Novalja, from the one tour everybody should book to the quiet stuff you can do yourself with a board and a dry bag.
Sea Kayaking in Pag Bay — the Big One
If you do one thing on the water here, make it the guided kayak trip along the eastern shore of Pag Bay. It launches from Ručica beach near Metajna, a twenty-minute drive from Novalja, and covers roughly ten kilometres of the most dramatic coastline on the island.
The route runs beneath the cliffs of Stogaj and Teplica — bare, pale, scoured smooth by the bura — and past Beritnica, the beach with three stone stacks standing offshore like something left behind by a bigger sea. Then comes the part people talk about afterwards: Gače, a sea cave you paddle straight into, about a hundred metres long, with a natural opening at the far end so you come out the other side rather than reversing back into the light. There are swim stops at Cape Sušac and at Malin beach, where a freshwater spring runs into the sea and the temperature changes under your legs.
Expect around three and a half hours door to door. No kayaking experience is needed — these are stable sit-on-top style boats and the guides pace it for beginners — but it is a real paddle, so bring water and something on your shoulders. Book ahead in July and August.
SUP: Go Early, Go Shallow
Stand-up paddleboarding is the easiest way onto the water here, and the secret is simply timing. Before about ten in the morning the sea in the sheltered bays is usually glass — no wind, no boat wash, no one else. By late afternoon the thermal breeze has filled in and a beginner on a board becomes a very slow sailing vessel heading somewhere they did not choose.
The friendliest water is the long, shallow bay at Stara Novalja, five kilometres north of town. Planjka (locals call it Trinčel) is sand rather than pebble, the shallows run out a long way, and the water warms up faster than anywhere else nearby — which is exactly what you want when you are still figuring out where to put your feet. Boards are rented on several of the town beaches through the season; some operators also run guided sunset and night-glow paddles, which are worth it for the light alone.
One rule: on a board, always know which way the wind is pushing you. Paddle out against it and come home with it, never the other way around.
Know the Two Winds
Pag has a reputation for wind, and it is deserved, but it is really a story about two very different winds.
The maestral is the summer one: a north-westerly thermal breeze that builds through the afternoon, light to moderate, cooling and generally friendly. It is what fills the sails of the boats you see crossing the channel after lunch, and what makes a July afternoon on the beach bearable.
The bura is the other one: a north-easterly that comes down off the Velebit massif in sudden, hard gusts. It is far more common in spring, autumn and winter than in high summer, but it can turn up in August too, and when it does the eastern side of the island becomes no place for a kayak or a paddleboard. The bura is also the reason Pag looks the way it does — those stripped, lunar slopes behind Metajna, which you can walk on the Life on Mars trail, are wind-carved. Respect it, check a forecast every single morning, and if the local operators are not going out, do not go out.
Renting a Small Boat Without a Licence
This is the one a lot of visitors do not realise is possible. Under current Croatian rules, a rental boat up to five metres long with an engine of up to 5 kW (about 6.8 hp) can be operated without a boat licence by anyone over eighteen, provided you stay within 500 metres of the coast. That is a genuinely useful little permission: it is enough to hop between coves, reach a pebble beach that has no path down to it, and be back for lunch.
Anything faster or bigger means either a licence or a skipper, and plenty of Novalja operators will happily supply the second. Rules and limits do get revised, so confirm the current terms with the rental company before you hand over a deposit — a reputable operator will explain them without being asked, and will also brief you on where not to go.
Obvious first outing: south along the shore towards Časka, where the bay hides the remains of a sunken Roman town, then on to whichever of the beaches around Novalja looks emptiest from the water. Which, on a good day, is usually the one with no road to it.
Going Under Instead of Over
If the surface is not enough, the waters around Pag hold walls, caves, amphorae and wrecks, and there are established dive centres working out of Novalja. We have written about that separately in our guide to diving spots around the island of Pag. For everyone else, a mask and a pair of reef shoes will get you more than you expect — the water along the rocky sections is clear enough that snorkelling counts as an activity rather than a consolation prize.
Five Things Worth Packing
- Reef shoes. Almost every launch point here is pebble or rock. This is not optional.
- A dry bag. Phone, keys, a towel. Small, cheap, saves a holiday.
- More water than you think. There are no taps in the coves.
- A long-sleeved rash top. Three hours of reflected Adriatic sun beats most sunscreen.
- A forecast, checked that morning. Yesterday’s does not count on this coast.
When to Go
June and September are the sweet spot: the sea is warm, the operators are running full schedules, and you are not sharing Gače cave with four other groups. July and August work perfectly well too — just do your paddling before ten in the morning and leave the afternoon to the beach. For a fuller breakdown, see our month-by-month guide to visiting Novalja.
Novalja is a simple experience of joy at the best of times. Seen from a kayak at half past seven in the morning, with the Velebit still in shadow and the sea completely flat, it is something better than that.
