Blue Cave & 5 Islands: Private

The same five islands as the group day, on the same boats with the same crew, except that nothing about the timetable is fixed except the light in the Blue Cave. Everything after that is a conversation with your skipper, on the morning and on the water.

The cave still sets the start. We leave the Split Riva early, run the ninety minutes south to Biševo, and you go in the way everyone goes in, twelve at a time in one of the small local boats, because there is no other way through the opening. The difference is what happens if the queue at Mezzoporat is long: your own boat can go and swim somewhere else first, then come back once it has thinned out, instead of queuing because eleven strangers are on a schedule.

From there the day bends to your group. Stiniva, which the group boat passes for the view, can be a proper anchor stop where you swim in through the gap. Budikovac can run long if the children are happy and the snorkelling is good, or short if nobody wants another swim. The Vis cliffs can be a slow pass or a proper look into the sea caves. Some groups want a swimming day with four stops in the water; others want to be ashore in Hvar for half the afternoon. Both are the same price.

Lunch is the other thing worth planning. Hvar has the konobas and the crowd, and two hours there is the usual answer. The quieter one is to eat in the hidden cove near Milna on Brač, at a family-run restaurant that cooks the local way, home food rather than a tourist menu. There is no road down to it, so the only guests are the ones who arrived by boat. Tell the crew a day ahead and we arrange the table.

Everything else is what the group day gives you: the cave, the cliffs on the south coast of Vis, the turquoise shallows at Budikovac, marble-paved Hvar, the cruise out through the Pakleni islands, and the last swim in the cove before the sheltered channel run home. Up to 12 guests, a skipper and a sailor, snorkelling gear and water on board. At twelve people it works out at €100 each, which is less than a seat on a shared boat.