Bring It or Buy It in Hvar: Food on the Boat

No meal is included in the Blue Cave day tour from Split, and no operator on this route includes one. The €110 seat buys the boat and the day: fuel, a professional skipper and a sailor, travel insurance, wind jackets for the crossings, snorkel masks and fins for everyone, and bottled water on board all day.

Two things sit outside it. The Blue Cave entrance fee, €18 to €24 per adult depending on the season, is collected on Biševo in cash by the authority that manages the cave, never by us and never in advance. And anything you eat or drink ashore, which on this route means Hvar.

That is the whole list. It is worth knowing precisely, because the gap between boarding and your first meal is longer than most people plan for.

Boarding on the Split Riva is 07:00 between 16 June and 15 September, and 07:45 in the shoulder months. Between there and lunch the day looks like this:

07:00 leave Split. About two hours of open water south, past Šolta and down the length of Vis. 09:00 to 09:45, Biševo. You queue at Mezzoporat, transfer into the small local boat, and spend around ten minutes inside the cave. Then the south coast of Vis, a slow pass under the cliffs, and Stiniva seen through the gap from the water. Around 11:30, Budikovac, an hour of the calmest snorkelling of the day. 13:30, Hvar, and the first thing you can eat that you did not bring.

Six and a half hours. On a July morning that is a long time to be on the water on a coffee, and it is the single most common thing guests say they would do differently.

Water, and enough of it. Bottled water is included and kept cold, and the crew would rather you drank too much of it than too little. Ten hours of sun and salt dehydrates people faster than they notice.

Shade. A hardtop covers the cockpit, so there is somewhere to sit out of the sun for the whole crossing, and a sundeck at the stern for those who want the opposite.

No toilet. A speedboat this size does not have one. First stop is Mezzoporat on Biševo, about two hours out, which is the honest reason to go before you board rather than after your second coffee.

No fridge, no galley, no bar. Nothing is for sale on board. Ashore, the café at Mezzoporat sells cold drinks and coffee while you wait for the cave, and after that it is Hvar. The swim stops have nothing: Budikovac has no shop and the cove near Milna has no road to it, let alone a café.

Keep it dry, keep it simple, and keep it small. A bakery sandwich, a piece of fruit, nuts, a chocolate bar that will survive a warm bag. There is no fridge and no table, so nothing that needs refrigerating and nothing that needs cutting up.

The bakeries around the Riva and the Green Market open early and are the easy answer on the walk down: burek, a sandwich, something for a child who will be hungry at nine whatever the schedule says. A small bag of nuts or dried fruit does more for a ten-hour day than anything sweet.

What not to bring: glass, anything oily, and a picnic for four. Twelve people on a boat share the space, and a full cool box is a nuisance to everyone including you.

One thing worth adding for August: an empty water bottle you can refill on board is better than three you have to keep track of.

Two hours in Hvar is the part of this day that makes the morning worth rationing. It is enough for a sit-down lunch in a konoba off the main square rather than a slice eaten standing up on the way back to the boat.

The crew will point you at two places nearby they actually trust, both about five minutes from where the boat ties up. If you would rather plan it, the Hvar lunch guide covers what fits into two hours, what does not, and where the queues are at half past one.

Budget €15 to €25 a head for a proper meal with a drink. Most places take cards; some of the smaller back-street konobas are cash only, which brings us to the last thing to sort before you leave.

The cave fee is cash, on Biševo, per person. €24 per adult from 20 June to 10 September and €18 the rest of the season, half price for children aged 6 to 12, free under 6. There is no card machine at the kiosk and no ATM on the island. A family of four in August is €72 if both children are over six, and the time to discover that is not at the cave mouth.

Everything else about your booking is cardless too, but in the other direction. The 15% deposit is paid online when you book, and the balance goes out as a secure payment link before the trip. There is no card terminal on the boat, so nobody is asked to settle up at sea.

The short version: bring cash for the cave and for lunch if you like small konobas, and leave the rest to the link in your inbox.