Tavira - Olhao

Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Fri 20 Aug 2010 18:35
We set off today back towards Faro as Suzanne has an early start for her flight back to the UK on Sunday morning. Faro and Olhao are close together within a large lagoon filled with salt pans. The towns are basically on each side of the lagoon about 9km apart by road. The end of the lagoon towards Faro is much shallower and there is a mooring pool, which although very picturesque, is quite small and needs to be entered on a rising tide. The problem with that is that if there isn't enough room you have to be very quick to get out or you could end up stuck on a sand bank until the next high tide! Olhao, which we later found out is pronounced olly-ow, had, according to the chart a marina which would take a boat of our size, just about, so we headed there. The weather was hot and sunny and we had the chance to top up our suntans on the way over. Again we needed to arrive on a rising tide so aimed to be there in time for a late lunch.
On the way up the Ria Formosa to Olhao we passed a large anchorage which would be our second choice if the marina was unavailable, as well as a few islands with gorgeous but very busy beaches.
The marina was not quite what we expected when we arrived. We had to take a very narrow channel alongside the pontoons as the water was very shallow nearby. A few attempts to radio ahead had been hopeless so we decided to tie up on the outside of the pontoon and go ashore to find out if we could stay. The first problem was that I was unable to get off the pontoon as the gates were locked and a key was needed to access the harbour. I found an English speaking boat crew who said they were very strict about anyone landing a boat and being let out by key-holders so he couldn't help with that. However, he said that no-one worked in the marina at weekends and that people moored up on the pontoons on the other side of a small anchorage near the market and it was basically free as no-one would check over the weekend. We moored there and decided to take our chances, although we had no electric or water on the pontoon. Water was getting quite necessary as 3 of us had been on anchor the last 2 nights so we bought 10 x 5l bottles of water from the local supermarket, 'borrowed' the trolley to take them back to the boat and shuttled water back and forth in the dinghy from a nearby tap - problem solved!
The town itself was quite small and not at all touristy, despite the amount of people who queued up daily for the boats to go to the island to sunbathe. That evening we decided to go out in the dinghy for a sundowner and see what all the fuss was about. We headed out and came to Isla do Amourna, about 20 minutes away by dinghy, which was a holiday village full of small chalet type buildings and lots of people. It has a very nice holiday atmosphere with a couple of very casual beach bars.

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