5 Islands Tour from Split: Which Five, in What Order, and Why

Five islands, in this order: Biševo for the Blue Cave, Vis for Stiniva, Budikovac for the lagoon, Hvar for the Old Town and lunch, and Brač for a last swim in a cove near Milna. Ten hours from the Split Riva, twelve guests on the boat, €110 per person. The order is not a matter of taste. It is set by the light inside the cave, by the wind in the afternoon, and by the length of each crossing.

This article is the route the Blue Cave and 5 Island tour runs, explained leg by leg: what each island is for, why the day goes anticlockwise round the archipelago rather than any other way, which islands you pass without counting, and what the four, six and seven island days advertised along the same quay actually are. If you only want the figures, they are on the page of checked numbers.

Biševo, for the Blue Cave. A small island five kilometres off the south west corner of Vis, and the reason the day exists. The cave is on its east side, entered in a local wooden barque, and the stop is about 45 minutes, of which the minutes inside the chamber are the ones you remember. The entry fee, €18 to €24 per person, is paid in cash on the island to the concession that runs the cave and is not part of any tour price from Split. The fee, explained.

Vis, for Stiniva. Twenty minutes east of Biševo along the cliffs of Vis's south coast is a cove sealed behind a gap in the rock a few metres wide, voted the best beach in Europe in 2016. On the group day the skipper noses the boat towards the gap so everyone gets the view straight through it, and nobody lands. That is a deliberate choice, and the reason is in the next section. Stiniva, and why it is only reachable by boat.

Budikovac, for the lagoon. Ten minutes on from Stiniva, an islet off the south east corner of Vis with a shallow turquoise lagoon between it and a smaller islet beside it. Sand bottom, waist to chest deep across most of it, sheltered from every wind that matters. About 45 minutes, and the calmest snorkelling water of the day. The Budikovac snorkel guide.

Hvar, for the Old Town. About forty minutes north across the Vis channel. Two hours ashore, the longest stop of the day, for the marble Pjaca, the harbour, the Fortica if your legs are willing, and a proper lunch in a konoba. Lunch is yours to choose and to pay for, which is the honest way to sell two hours in a town with this many good tables. How the Hvar lunch stop works.

Brač, for the last swim. Out of Hvar through the Pakleni Islands, across the Hvar channel to the west coast of Brač and a cove near Milna with no road down to it, so the only swimmers are the ones who arrived by boat. About 45 minutes, then thirty minutes of sheltered channel back to Split. Milna, the harbour next door.

Five is a count of the places the boat stops for you, not of the land you see. On the way out the boat passes Šolta, and between Hvar and Brač it threads the Pakleni archipelago. Some boats in Split count those and sell the same water as a seven island day. We do not, because passing an island at twenty five knots is not visiting it.

The cave is lit by sunlight refracting through an underwater opening, so the colour inside depends on where the sun is while you are in there. The blue is strongest in the late morning. Arrive early and the chamber is a pale grey room with wet walls; arrive in the afternoon and the light has moved on. The whole day is built to put twelve people inside that window.

The second reason is the queue. Entry at Biševo is a numbered system, and the boats that left Split first are the boats in front of you. In August the difference between a 07:00 departure and a 09:00 one is regularly an hour of waiting at the mouth of the cave. That is why the group day leaves at 07:00 between 16 June and 15 September and at 07:45 in the shoulder months, and why the start moves with the season rather than with what would be a more comfortable breakfast.

The third reason is the sea. Biševo is the furthest point of the day, about two hours of open Adriatic from Split. Doing the longest crossing first means doing it on the morning sea, before the maestral has had time to build, and it means that every leg after the cave is shorter and closer to home than the one before it. The three winds that shape a boat day.

Put the cave anywhere else in the day and all three go wrong at once: a boat that reaches Biševo at 14:00 has queued behind everyone, sees a dimmer cave, and still has two hours of open water to cross home into the afternoon wind.

From Biševo the route turns east and runs close under the south coast of Vis, cliffs the swell has cut into arches and hollows you can only see from the water. Twenty minutes brings the boat to the gap at Stiniva.

Stiniva is a viewing stop of about fifteen minutes on the group day, and the reason is arithmetic. The cove is sealed behind a passage a few metres wide. Anchoring outside it, swimming twelve people in, giving them time on the pebbles, and swimming them back out costs about an hour. That hour has to come from somewhere, and on a shared boat it comes from Budikovac or from Hvar, both of which are better places to spend it. So the boat goes in as far as the gap, everyone gets the look straight through into the turquoise, and the day carries on.

Ten minutes further is Budikovac, and this is where the first proper swim of the day is, on purpose. By the time the boat anchors it is close to midday, the sun is high, the water in the shallow lagoon has been warming since dawn, and the islet shelters the bay from the wind. Forty five minutes here is the stop most groups would extend if they could.

On the private version of the same route the arithmetic changes, because there is nobody else's hour to protect. Stiniva becomes a swim stop of about 45 minutes and the rest of the day stretches or shrinks around what the group wants.

The leg from Budikovac north to Hvar is about forty minutes across the Vis channel, and it is the last stretch of genuinely open water in the day. It is placed at around one o'clock for a reason.

The maestral, the summer north westerly, is a thermal wind. It starts late in the morning, builds through the early afternoon and is at its strongest between about three and five. A crossing of the Vis channel at 13:00 is a different sea from the same crossing at 16:00, and the difference is felt most by whoever on the boat was already unsure about boats. Sea sickness on a Blue Cave day, honestly.

This is also why the day cannot simply be run backwards, Hvar first and the cave last. It reads well on paper, sunset in Hvar and all, and it puts the longest open water crossing of the day into the windiest hours, after a cave seen in the wrong light. The order the boats leave Split in is the order the sea allows.

The boat ties up in Hvar at about half past one, which is lunch, and the stop is two hours, which is the longest of the day. Both are deliberate.

Two hours is the length at which Hvar stops being a photo stop and becomes a visit. It is enough for a proper lunch, the Pjaca, the harbour front and the lanes behind the cathedral, and, if the group walks fast, the climb to the Fortica for the view back over the Pakleni. Ninety minutes is a queue for ice cream with a view of a fortress you did not reach.

Lunchtime is the right hour for it because the alternatives are worse. Hvar at 10:00 is a town having coffee while you want to swim; Hvar at 17:00 means the last swim was in the middle of the day and the run home is in the dark by late October. Lunch in the middle also splits the day into two halves of swimming, which is how twelve people of different ages stay happy on one boat.

If Hvar is the island you actually came for, there is a day built around it. The Golden Cape, Hvar and Pakleni tour spends the same two hours there and adds Zlatni Rat on Brač and the Pakleni bays, at the cost of the cave.

Leaving Hvar at about half past three, the boat runs west through the Pakleni Islands, the string of pine covered islets off the harbour. It is a passage rather than a stop on the group day: you see Palmižana and the bays of Sveti Klement from the water, and the skipper picks the channel with the best view of them. Which Pakleni bay is which.

Then north across the Hvar channel to the west coast of Brač, to a cove near Milna with no road down to it. This is the last swim, about 45 minutes, and it is on Brač rather than in the Pakleni for a plain reason: Brač is on the way home. A swim in the Pakleni would add a leg and put the boat in the channel an hour later; a swim on Brač costs no running at all, because the boat has to pass it anyway.

From the cove it is about thirty minutes to the Split Riva, out between Brač and Šolta and across the Split channel, sheltered water all the way, arriving between about 17:15 and 18:00 depending on the season. The last leg is the calmest of the day, which is exactly what you want after ten hours on a boat.

The cave is seen in its best light, because the boat is at Biševo in the late morning window and not after it.

The queue at Biševo is short, because the boat left Split before the boats behind it.

The longest crossing is done on the morning sea, and the last open water leg, Budikovac to Hvar, is crossed at one o'clock before the maestral is up.

Every leg after the cave is shorter than the one before, so the day gets easier as it gets longer.

Lunch happens at lunchtime, in the one town on the route worth two hours.

The swims happen when the water is warmest, at midday in the lagoon and mid afternoon off Brač, and the last one is on the way home so it costs no time.

The boat comes back up a sheltered channel in daylight, in every month the tour runs. When each month is like.

The Split quay sells the same water under several different counts, and the count tells you less than the stop list does.

A four island day usually drops Stiniva or Budikovac. Often it is a bigger boat that cannot get close to the gap at Stiniva or into the shallows at Budikovac, or a later departure that has run out of hours. A six or seven island day is usually the five above with Šolta and the Pakleni counted as visits because the boat passed them. Neither is dishonest exactly, but neither tells you what you will do.

Four questions cut through it. At which stops do I actually get into the water? How long in Hvar? How many guests on the boat? What time does it leave Split? The answers for this day are Budikovac and Brač with Stiniva seen from the water, two hours, twelve, and 07:00 or 07:45. Any operator can be asked the same four. Choosing a speedboat operator in Split and speedboat against big boat go into what the answers mean.

It is a ten hour day with two hours of open Adriatic in it, and there are people it does not suit. A short stay, small children, or anyone who knows they do not like boats is better served by the Blue Lagoon and Trogir half day, four and a half hours in sheltered water, twice a day. The half day tour, explained.

If the point of the trip is a beach rather than a cave, the Golden Cape, Hvar and Pakleni day goes to Zlatni Rat on Brač and swims in the Pakleni bays, without the crossing to Vis.

And if there are eight or more of you, the same five islands are available with nobody else aboard. The private Blue Cave day is €1,300 for the boat, up to twelve guests; the start is yours, Stiniva becomes a swim, and past eleven people it costs less per head than the group ticket. The arithmetic for a group of eight.

On the handful of days each season when the swell closes the cave, the day runs without it, the entry fee is not paid, and the rest of the five islands are still there. What actually happens when the weather turns.

The Blue Cave and 5 Island tour is €110 per person, held with a 15% deposit and settled on the day. It runs from April to November, leaves from the Split Sign on the Riva with boarding fifteen minutes before departure, and takes a maximum of twelve guests, so July and August dates are best booked weeks ahead. The 5 Island tour overview is the short version of this page with the departures beside it.

Bring cash for the cave fee, a towel, sunscreen, a hat and a light layer for the morning crossing. Snorkelling gear, wind jackets and cold drinks are aboard. The full packing list.