Amalfi Coast Boat Tour Itinerary: Positano to Amalfi, Hour by Hour

The roughly 16 kilometres of coast between Positano and Amalfi pack in the most dramatic scenery on the whole Costiera: villages built vertically into the cliffs, hidden coves, a true fjord and a sea cave that glows green. By road it is a slow, traffic-choked drive. By sea it is a 35-minute run you can happily stretch into a full, unhurried day with time to swim.

The times below assume a relaxed pace with three or four swim stops, leaving mid-morning and returning late afternoon. On a private boat nothing is locked in: you can linger longer in a cove, drop a stop, or run the route in reverse to dodge the crowds and the afternoon breeze. Read the schedule as a rhythm, not a fixed timetable.

Positano only makes full sense from the water. Pull out of the harbour and the town reveals itself as a single pastel cascade — houses stacked up the ravine beneath the majolica-tiled dome of Santa Maria Assunta, which shelters a Byzantine Black Madonna. You glide past Spiaggia Grande, busy by ten, and the smaller, calmer Fornillo beach just to the west, with the morning sun full on the façades.

Just east, off the little Laurito beach, sits one of the coast's most loved lunch spots, reachable only on foot or by its own wooden shuttle with a red fish on the mast — worth booking ahead if you want to come back for it later. For now the sea is glassy and the light is perfect, so this is the moment for photographs of the town before you head along the coast.

Swing south-west of Positano and three small islands break the horizon: Gallo Lungo, La Rotonda and La Castelluccia, together the Li Galli — the ancient Sirenuse that legend tied to Homer's Sirens and the voyage of Ulysses. They are privately owned (once by the dancers Léonide Massine and, until 1993, Rudolf Nureyev), so you circle rather than land. The water around them is deep, clear and an easy first swim.

Tracking back east toward Praiano and Marina di Praia, the coast turns quieter and faces the sunset. This is a good place for the first proper stop: a sheltered cove, the engine off, and ten minutes in clean water before the day really begins. Praiano sees a fraction of Positano's crowds, so the anchorages here stay calmer well into the morning.

The Fiordo di Furore is the surprise of the coast — not a Norwegian-style fjord but a narrow cleft where the Schiato torrent cuts down to the sea, spanned high above by a road bridge around thirty metres up, famous for its summer high-diving competition. At the bottom there is a scrap of beach and the old monazeni, the stone fishermen's houses clinging to the rock. Roberto Rossellini and Anna Magnani filmed here in 1948.

A nimble RIB can nose right into the inlet when the swell allows, where the water turns flat and the cliffs close in overhead. It is a short stop — a few photographs, maybe a quick dip in the green water under the bridge — but it is exactly the kind of place a big tour boat simply cruises past without ever entering.

At Conca dei Marini the Grotta dello Smeraldo, the Emerald Grotto, earns its name: sunlight enters through a submerged opening and reflects off the pale seabed, flooding the cavern with green light. Brought to wider fame in 1932 by a local fisherman, it is hung with stalactites and stone columns, and a ceramic nativity scene rests on the seabed below — the focus of a Christmas underwater dive each year.

Practical detail matters here: you cannot take your own boat inside. The entrance is barely a metre high, so local boatmen row small groups in for a modest ticket, and the cave closes altogether when the sea is up. The colour is strongest around midday with the sun high, which is exactly why this stop sits in the middle of the itinerary rather than at the start.

By early afternoon you have earned the long stop. The bays around Conca dei Marini and Furore are deep, clean and well sheltered, ideal for dropping anchor to swim and eat. You can have a tender run you in to a seaside restaurant, or simply eat aboard — most private days do the latter, trading a table for a longer time in the water.

This is the heart of a private day and the part a packed group tour can't give you. Shade overhead, a teak deck to dry off on, a swim straight off the stern, and a mask and snorkel over the rocks. Nobody is hurrying you back to a schedule, so the stop lasts exactly as long as the group wants it to.

Mid-afternoon you reach Amalfi itself, once one of the great medieval maritime republics. Arriving by sea you step almost straight onto the piazza beneath the striped Cathedral of Sant'Andrea, with its steep staircase and the serene Cloister of Paradise just inside. Half an hour ashore is enough for a lemon granita and a look at the Duomo before the heat of the afternoon settles in.

Right next door, hidden behind a headland, is Atrani — one of the smallest villages in Italy, its little square tucked away from the crowds that fill Amalfi. From here you turn back west for the slow cruise home, the cliffs now lit gold and the morning's swim stops looking completely different in the late-afternoon light.

The single most useful planning rule on this coast: mornings are calm. A thermal sea breeze usually builds through the early afternoon, kicking up a chop, so an early start means flatter water for the fjord and the grotto and a smoother run overall. If you can only do half a day, the morning half is the one to take.

Pack swimwear and a towel, reef-safe sunscreen, a light layer for the breeze on the way home, a soft bag rather than a hard case, and a few euros in cash for the grotto ticket. Remember the Emerald Grotto can be closed in swell, so keep the day flexible. The reliable season runs from late May to late September, with the warmest water in August.

The real difference between a private day and a group excursion is control. You choose the departure time, the swim stops and where you eat, and a captain who knows the water can reshuffle the whole route around the wind, the swell and the crowds. A stable, shaded RIB also reaches places — the fjord, the foot of the cliffs — that larger boats keep well away from.

If you would like to run this exact day, we operate it as a private charter from the Amalfi Coast aboard a single SACS RIB with captain included. See the full Amalfi Coast boat tour, the shorter Positano boat tour, or, for golden-hour light, the Amalfi Coast sunset cruise. Tell us your group size and date and we will plan the route around the sea.