A charter day here is not a cave tour
It is worth separating the two before you spend anything. The cave circuit at Polignano is a short, dense trip on a small open boat, about 1.5 hours on hulls taking up to 10 people. A charter is the other kind of day: a bigger boat from the marina, several hours, swimming, lunch, and the coast between Polignano and Monopoli at your own pace. Groups regularly want both, and there is no reason not to have both.
The charter fleet working this stretch runs catamarans plus motor and sailing yachts, based at Cala Ponte Marina on the Polignano side and at the old port in Monopoli, and has operated since 2013. Cave-tour boats, by contrast, board at San Vito a couple of kilometres north of town, and Lama Monachile has no boarding point — getting the departure right is half of a smooth morning here.
Pricing, and why we cannot publish a number
The charter base publishes no prices at all: every yacht day is quoted per boat and per date. That is normal in charter and it is not evasion — the number genuinely moves with the boat, the month, the hours and whether a skipper and crew are aboard. What we can give you as an anchor is the small-boat end of the same market: privately, around 250 to 300 EUR for 1.5 hours, with sunset runs near 250 EUR and longer blocks listed at roughly 500 EUR for 3 hours or 1,000 EUR for 6. A charter yacht sits above that; we get you the real figure rather than guessing at it.
Licensing, and who is at the wheel
Italian pleasure-craft law lets you take a small engine out without a licence within 6 nautical miles of shore, which is the basis of the licence-free rentals you will see advertised further south. A skippered charter is a different arrangement: the skipper must hold the patente nautica and the boat must be registered for charter use. We only arrange days with businesses that meet that bar. We do not own boats and we do not skipper them; the decision to sail, and where, belongs to the person driving.
Season, wind and the sensible day to go
The boat season runs March to October, with the visitor peak May to October and the crush from June to August. The sea is warmest July into September. Wind is what actually shapes the day: northerlies chop up this coast, and skippers make go or no-go calls the same morning, with mornings usually the calmest window. Note also that a cliff-diving event closes Polignano’s water to regular tours for one day a year, on a moving date.
Cancellation terms vary by boat — free cancellation up to 24 hours before is the norm on tours, rentals are stricter at a 48-hour cut-off, and weather cancellations normally mean a reschedule or refund. We put your specific terms in writing before anything is paid.
Build the day around it
A charter morning pairs naturally with a private chef in Polignano a Mare that evening, or a cooking class on the day the wind is wrong. Arrivals run through the Bari Airport transfer. Everything in the region sits on the Puglia page, and charters elsewhere on boat charters.
Request availability with your dates, party size and whether you want the caves, the swimming or both.