Day 13 – The Algarve

By Shaz Thompson on September 3, 2016 • ( Leave a comment )

Finally Patty’s boat trip day has arrived. At 3pm today we are going on a river cruise of the Ria Formosa National Park. Firstly Shaz, John and Sam are up early to play 18 holes on San Lorenzo on the recommendation of Nick. Sam cannot play as you have to have a max handicap of 18 to play this course which is rated as No 2. in Europe. Sam was the driver and caddy.

When we arrived, no one came to pick up our bags, no GPS in the cart, no free water – we were disappointed after the rave reviews it got. The course is a good design, and runs along the beach and Ria Formosa Salt water lagoons that we will be exploring later. The course is Bermuda grass, John and I had our moments with a spectacular shot each to impress Sam. John was having a tough hole and got fed up and threw his club, Sam asked me where is ball went and I said “over there, I think his club went further” this appealed to his sense of humour and he said “I just can’t take him seriously anymore” from then on Sam used all of his self control to stop laugh at Uncle John. It was great fun, especially spending time with Sam.

Some photos…

Then it was straight back home to the pool for a quick cool down and straight out to Faro for lunch and the long awaited pedalo (I mean boat trip).

One of the highlights of the trip will be this boat trip, which is on a small catamaran which we had mainly to ourselves – there were two other couples. A french couple and an italian couple – the guide did the tour in english. This boat driver/guide was amazing – he spoke Portuguese, Italian, French and English – that we know of. Was very well educated on the wild life and music. The trip was advertised at 3 ½ hours 5 hours later we returned home. He asked us if we wanted to do a detour and go and see some flamingoes – which we all said yes. Because of the tide (which is 6m) it was difficult to get close – so we had to rely on binoculars and 20/20 vision. We visited working fishing villages and stopped off on 4 islands, the first was the most southerly point of Portugal and Europe (apart from Gibraltar which after Brexit – is it Europe? Sorry sore point….

We saw a seahorse (which was dead), conch shells, sea urchins. Went to a bar where the beer was €1. Because we were so late back we also got to experience the sunset. I will let the photos tell the tale.