Maslinica Sunset boat ride

Maslinica sits at the western end of Šolta, facing open sea. That single fact is the reason this tour exists: it is the nearest place to Split where the sun goes down into the water rather than behind a hill. Three hours, a private boat for up to twelve guests, dinner in a village of 208 people.

The departure is set by the sunset on your date, not by a fixed hour on a timetable — which is why it moves by hours between June and October.

From the Split waterfront the sun drops behind Marjan and the Kaštela hills. From the north coast of Brač it goes down behind the mainland. Maslinica is the one stop within an evening's range of Split where the western horizon is water: seven islets in the foreground and nothing behind them.

Where the sun touches the sea also moves through the season. In mid-June it sets to the north-west, at a bearing of about 304°, well clear of the islets. By mid-October it has swung round to roughly 259°, almost due west, and drops behind them instead. Same bay, two different photographs.

There is no fixed departure hour on this tour, because the sunset moves through the season. We set the departure against the sunset on your date, so that you are sitting in Maslinica with time to spare before the light goes — early evening in midsummer, mid-afternoon by late October, once the clocks go back.

Tell us your date when you book and we confirm the time with it.

The tour runs about three hours in total, published as 19:00 to 22:00. There is no stop-by-stop schedule: on a private boat the only fixed point in the evening is the sun.

Departure from Split

You meet your skipper at the pick-up point and head south-west across the Split channel, Čiovo to starboard and the north shore of Šolta to port. It is roughly 12 nautical miles and takes well under an hour, leaving about two hours ashore.

The seven islets

Maslinica bay is screened by an archipelago of seven: Polebrnjak, Saskinja, Stipanska, Kamik, Balkun, Rudula and Grmej. They are low and bare, and they sit close enough together to break the swell — the reason there is a harbour here at all, on a coast that is otherwise exposed.

They also give the sunset a foreground: an empty horizon is a flat picture, seven dark shapes with the light behind them is not.

Maslinica village and the Marchi castle

Maslinica is the only settlement on the western end of the island, and the building at the head of the bay is the castle the Marchi brothers were granted permission to build in 1703 and finished around 1708 — a fortified house with a tower, put up to hold the western approach of the island against raiders from the sea. It is a heritage hotel today, with a marina alongside it that opened in 2012 and takes around sixty boats. Šipkova bay, a short walk from the harbour, has the only sandy beach on Šolta.

Dinner ashore

Your skipper books a table with a view before you leave Split.

Order the local red. Dobričić is Šolta's own grape, grown almost nowhere else; DNA analysis identified it as one of the two parents of Plavac Mali, the other being Crljenak Kaštelanski — the variety known abroad as Zinfandel. Dinner and drinks are not included in the tour price.

The run back to Split

You cast off once the colour has gone out of the sky. The crossing back is usually the calmest water of the day, with the lights of the city coming up ahead of you.

We run two sunset tours and they point in opposite directions. This one goes west to Šolta. The Supetar sunset boat ride goes east to Brač.

The real difference is what the sun goes down behind. From Supetar you are looking back at the coast, so it sets over Split, Čiovo and the Kaštela hills — a good picture in its own right, but a land horizon. From Maslinica you are looking at open sea.

Supetar is the bigger place — more restaurants, more shops — and it costs less, from 315 € against 342 € here. Maslinica is a village with a castle and a marina, and that is roughly the whole of it.

Take Supetar if you want the town in the evening. Take Maslinica if you came for the sun on the water.

Both go to Šolta, and they do not overlap.

The half-day Šolta tour runs five hours in daylight and visits Nečujam and Stomorska, on the eastern and northern side of the island. That is the swimming tour. This one runs three hours in the evening and goes to Maslinica, at the western end. That is the eating and watching tour.

Different half of the island, different half of the day. Guests staying a week often book both; there is more on how the evening works in our guide to sunset boat rides in Croatia.

It is not a swimming tour, there is no beach stop, and there is no toilet on board — the restaurants ashore have them. If what you want is a day in the sea off Šolta, take the half-day tour instead.

A light jacket or windbreaker — it is cooler on the water after sunset than most guests expect, even in August. Sunglasses for the outbound leg, a camera, and cash or card for dinner. Bottled water, safety equipment and boat insurance are already on board.