Diving in the Algarve.

By Paul Hopcraft

Looking for a holiday where you can enjoy some very good diving and there is plenty for your non-diving partner, friends or family to do?

The Algarve seems to be best known for its golf courses, but there is also some good diving to be had. I used a company called Dive Time who are based in the marina at Lagos. In September the water temperature was around 17 degrees, making a 5mm suit adequate.

They use a large RIB and do two dives in a morning with the surface interval spent on the boat. Unfortunately the visibility was not great when I was there, although no worse than an average day on the south coast! What astonished me was the vast amount of life on the dive sites, so much that the lack of visibility didn’t really matter! The rocks were alive with anemones, octopi, crabs, shrimp, juvenile conger, nudibranch, pipefish and large shoals of reef fish. The seascape in the area consists of reefs, caverns and pinnacles which make for interesting, varied diving. There seems to be a good variety of diving on offer, including wrecks for those who aren’t so keen on the “squidgy” stuff. Nitrox is offered and they have a good selection of equipment for hire, obviously hiring kit puts the price up, I took everything except a suit.

The staff at Dive Time were professional, competent, friendly, fun and, most importantly, safe. Business was quiet when I was there, only one other diver, so they were up for a little negotiation on the prices.

The trip out from the marina is along a wide river, passing a full scale replica of a Portuguese Caravel. It was with these boats that the great Portuguese explorers opened up the coast of West Africa, the Caravel boats have a very shallow draft which made them ideal for sailing up-river into the heart of Africa. Further west from Lagos you can find the site of Henry the Navigators semi-monastic navigation school and Sagres, the most south-easterly point in mainland Europe, where huge waves pound the sea-cliffs. This was the last view of home that nervous Portuguese sailors would have had as they set out on expeditions in to the unknown that could last for several years.

In the hills above Lagos you can find tiny traditional villages that seem completely unaffected by the tourist developments below and forests of Quercus Arbus, commonly known as cork oak. Cork harvesting is still a major export business in Portugal.

Lagos itself has a well preserved old town, a beautiful fish market where you can find a huge selection of fish many of which I have never seen for sale in the UK and an excellent selection of reasonably priced restaurants, a large plate of grilled sardines with a glass of wine would typically cost about £4 and a three course “menu of the day” about £8.

Flights from London were available in September for less £100.

Lagos is about an hours drive from the airport at Faro, we used a local car hire company called Luz Car; they are reasonably priced and offer an all in no extras deal.

Links:

Dive Time

Luz Car