Island boat tour from Olhão to discover Ria Formosa
Lianne, responsible for the Spanish market and content/translations at SeaBookings, went on holidays in the Algarve and tried out this unique boat tour from Olhão to the Nature Park of Ria Formosa and shares her experience.
This summer I decided I wanted to go and experience something else. I’ve been to Portugal many times, but I never saw Ria Formosa’s natural park.
It appears that you can do an island boat tour from Olhão to discover the Barrier Islands of the famous Ria Formosa.
Olhão is situated in the South of Portugal, in the Algarve. Faro is only 20 minutes driving away. Just before you arrive at the airport of Faro you can already see the beautiful islands.
It looked so beautiful that I convinced my boyfriend to come along with me to do a nice island boat tour from Olhão.
At 12h30 the tour would start at the Marina of Olhão. We got a clear description of where we had to be at the marina so it was very easy to find the boat.
The friendly guide named João gave us a warm welcome and asked us if we would like to get more information during the tour in English or Portuguese.
There were people on board who spoke both languages so it was no problem for him to give us a nice explanation in English and Portuguese.
Departing from Olhão we picked up more people along the way. We sailed through the big lagoon in front of Olhão along Deserta Island and explored Farol Island with its nice lighthouses.
During the boat trip, João told us more about the area and that we would stop for lunch at Culatra Fishermen’s Town in Culatra Island.
Culatra has only 1000 inhabitants and is interlaced with wooden walkways. Because there are no roads or vehicles, this is a unique place to be! Their main income is fishing and we got the opportunity to discover the island for 1.5 hours.
If you want it is possible to walk to a beautiful beach (20 minutes walking), but we preferred to have a nice lunch to eat some fresh fish. João took us to a very good place where they caught the fish in the morning. It was delicious!
Once we finished our lunch, we walked through the streets of Culatra en then we headed back to the boat. The next stop was Bahía de Armona e Isla de Armona.
We stopped there for 30 minutes and decided to take a fresh dip in the ocean. It was very nice to cool down in the crystal clear waters because it was a hot day!
We continued our boat tour to back to the Marina de Olhão and along the way, we saw the famous tuna factories. As well we were told that there is an area where you can observe seahorses.
In total this island boat tour from Olhão took 4 hours and we had an amazing time! Thank you very much, João for giving us more information about these beautiful landscapes in the Algarve!
Do you have more questions after reading about our this blog or are you looking for more tips to discover the beautiful islands of Ria Formosa? Please let us know by sending an email to [email protected]!
