Advertisement
Published: February 1st 2024
Edit Blog Post
Our last adventure! We set off at 11:35 to walk down to the marina and pick up our tickets for the zodiac boat ride to see dolphins and sea caves.
Heading out into the ocean which is the Strait of Gibraltar it appears we are just heading straight south towards Casablanca in N. Africa. I have always wanted to go there but not by zodiac boat with 17 other passengers. The ocean is a wondrous colour. You think it’s an blue but when you are riding out there on top of the big swells and the choppy smaller waves the colour is not describable. Overall it is an intense deep blue but the top is silvered with light reflections and indigo shadows under the curves of the waves but if you look deeper you see the aqua and green just below the surface. And be sure to notice the colour of the sky in the photos!
About 4 miles offshore there’s a shout from the captain “Dolphins” and the boat slows immediately. There is a pod of fish hunting bottle nose dolphins right where we are. Patience pays off as we wait for them to reappear. There is a
big male with a white top on his dorsal fin and a couple of mothers with small babies plus a number of others. These dolphins are smaller than I have seen on TV and research indicates that they are a small and endangered species of bottlenose dolphins. We’ve been lucky as often this time of year the boats don’t see any dolphins. I took a really great video of the dolphins but the file was too big and wouldn’t load.
After the excitement of seeing the dolphins, the boat takes us back towards the coast and the sea caves. Because we are in a smaller zodiac boat we can get inside some of the sea caves. Many of them have holes in the ceiling where the water from above has eroded the ceiling of the cave. There are myriad small holes that the birds have taken over for nests. Limestone erodes quickly and creates “flowerpots” or small individual rock islands. One of these resembled an elephant and another looked exactly like a submarine. Captain Raoul and his cohort Fabio are really enthusiastic about getting into small places and pointing out what to look for. All along the coast are
big beautiful white vacation homes and beckoning beaches. Fabio brings to our attention several jelly fish floating under the surface of the water and I see lots of them on the ride back.
A swift salt sprayed ride back to the marine ends our afternoon journey. My sunglasses are covered in salt spray and I lick my lips to taste the salt. But the day’s not over yet. We wander back through the marina and find the restaurant where we had our first dinner. A nice cold beer is the first order of business and we can sit in the sun and enjoy the warmth and good conversation while we wait for our meals. I love these Portuguese restaurants because they expect you to take your time, enjoy the company and don’t be in a rush to eat and leave. So a couple of hours, a couple of beers and a whole lotta food later we have to trudge back up the hill (feels like a mountain for some reason) to the house.
Sad to say tomorrow we leave. There have been so many wonderful things: meeting Anne’s brother and sister-in-law, meeting the Portuguese people, seeing the ocean,
exploring the towns and the coastal attractions, experiencing the food (seafood every day!) and last but not least the sun and warmth. It’s going to be hard to leave.
I would definitely return!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.126s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0951s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb