A Blue Cave Tours speedboat under way off Split

Who runs the boats

About us

A fishing family from Split who also run boats. Everything below is who that is, because you are about to give a stranger on the internet a deposit and the least we can do is tell you whose boat you are getting on.

Boats: Three speedboats
Guests per boat: Twelve, and it is a hard limit
Crew on board: A skipper and a sailor, every departure
Departs from: Split Sign, Split Riva
Season: Late April to early November
Based in: Antofagaste 10, 21000 Split

A member of the crew on deck with the day's catch. Blue Cave Tours — The season ends and the nets come back out. This is the older job.

Tino next to a bluefin tuna nearly his own height, hung up after a winter fishing trip. Blue Cave Tours — Tino and a bluefin nearly his own height. The winter job, done properly.

Fishing came first

The tours are the newer thing. Fishing is what this family has done on the Adriatic for generations, and it is still what most of us do once the season closes and the last guests fly home.

We say that because it explains the rest. It is why we know which bays stay flat when the jugo gets up, which cove is empty at eleven in the morning in August, and where the fish actually are. That is not something you can research. You get it from working the same water your family worked.

Two of the crew at the helm of the speedboat. Blue Cave Tours — Split, most mornings from late April to early November.

Every one of us came through the Maritime Faculty

We all studied at the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Split. That is where the licences come from, and the navigation, and the safety training that you hope never becomes relevant.

The local knowledge we grew up with. The rest we were taught properly. It means the person at the helm reads a forecast rather than hoping, and knows what to do on the one day out of a hundred when the sea has other ideas.

The stops are the excuse. The story is the point.

Anyone can move twelve people between five islands. What we want is for you to come back knowing something about the place you just spent a day in.

Why a harbour was built where it was and who built it. What the tunnel cut into the cliff on Brač was actually for. Why the light inside the Blue Cave works for two hours and not all day. What the tuna pens moored in open water mean for the economy of these islands. None of that is on the ticket, and all of it is the reason to come with us rather than with the boat next to us.

A turquoise bay on Brač ringed by pines, shallow and sheltered. Blue Cave Tours — One of the places you will not find on a schedule.

Places most boats do not go

Working this coast for a living leaves you with a list of places nobody puts on a route: a cove that is sheltered when everywhere else is not, a bay that is empty in the middle of the day, a stretch of cliff worth slowing down for.

Those are the stops we are proudest of, and they are the ones guests remember. On a private day the skipper builds the route around them and around what your group actually enjoys, rather than around a timetable written in an office.

Guests on the bow of the boat with their arms up on the way back to Split. Blue Cave Tours — Twelve guests, one boat, on the way back to Split.

We like doing this

Worth saying plainly, because a lot of operators would not. We enjoy the work. There are days in August when the alarm at half past five is hard, and then you round Bisevo at nine with the light coming up and remember why the job is worth having.

It also shows. A crew that wants to be on the water runs a better day than a crew counting the hours, and guests can tell the difference within twenty minutes of leaving the Riva.

What we will not do

We do not run the Green Cave, on any route. It is a genuine thing to want to see and the detour does not fit a day that already crosses open water twice, so we say no rather than promise it and rush the rest.

We do not claim ratings we cannot show you. The 4.96 on the homepage comes from 341 Airbnb reviews and links straight to them. There is no aggregate rating in our structured data, because we do not collect reviews on this site and inventing one would be the easiest lie on the internet to tell.

And we do not go out in weather that would ruin the day. The skipper calls it in the morning, on wind and swell rather than cloud, and if it cannot run you move the date or take everything back including the deposit.

Who is driving

Our crew

Two brothers, both with degrees from the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Split, and two very different routes to the same wheel. One went fishing and then to sea on merchant ships. The other went into mega yachts. What comes back is the same thing either way: years on the water, a professional standard, and a day run properly rather than run cheaply.

Tino

Skipper

Fisherman first, and still one every winter once the last guests have flown home. If you want to know why the dentex sit off one headland and not the next, or which cove is empty at eleven in the morning in August, Tino is the reason this website can tell you.

He has also been a long way from here: a full circumnavigation on merchant ships, which is the kind of sea time that makes a two-hour Adriatic crossing feel like nothing at all. On a rough morning that is exactly who you want at the wheel.

Ivan

Skipper

Years on mega yachts, where the standard is set by owners and charter guests who notice everything and forgive nothing. That is where the habits come from: the briefing before you leave, the boat that is already clean when you step on, the day that runs without anybody having to ask.

He brought that back to a twelve-guest speedboat on his own coast, which is the whole idea. The service is the one he was trained to give on a hundred-metre yacht. The setting is the sea he grew up on.

The boat at anchor over clear water with guests in the sea. Salty Adventures speedboat

The boat you actually sail on

Big, comfortable and built for the crossing

Every route runs on a 36-foot day-cruiser, a Mercan Excursion or an Enzo, with twin 480hp diesels underneath. Wide hull, deep sides, a hardtop over the cockpit and a proper sundeck at the stern. This is not a rib.

The difference shows on the open water to Biševo. A small boat spends that ninety minutes throwing spray at everyone behind the skipper. You arrive dry, warm and still in the mood to swim, which is the entire point of leaving at seven in the morning.

We cap every departure at twelve guests on a boat with room for more, so there is space to move between the shade at the front and the sun at the back. The safety kit is identical on each boat and goes through the same check before every departure: life jackets in adult and child sizes, EPIRB, VHF radio, flares and extinguishers.

Twin 480hp dieselHolds its line in a moderate bura
Twelve guests maximumOn a boat with room for more
Hardtop shade forwardOut of the sun for the whole crossing
Full sundeck aftLie down between swim stops
Panoramic seatingEveryone faces the water, nobody faces a wall
Bluetooth sound systemYour playlist, not ours
Full safety kitChecked before every single departure
Bottled waterCold, on board, included

Questions before you book?

Ask anything: it costs you nothing and it is how most bookings start.