Today might just have been the best day of the vacation 🙂

We head to the beach that we found when trying to find a way to get a car to the Smugglers Cove just around from Rocha Brava – a nice little beach with next to no car parking available BUT that you would need a car to get there 🙂

We arrived just after 11am as the grand folks had a nice sleep in 🙂 car parking was easy enough and the beach was beautiful shingle free dark yellow sand (nice and fine) but enough to get a decent purchase in for a parasol to stand upright 🙂

We got Elliot, Oliver, Grandma and Granddad a ham and cheese toastie from the beach bar and got some tickets for the 12:30 cave boat trip that claimed to take us to 20 caves in an hour.

Granddad built a sand boat for the boys to play in and Oliver and Daddy went in search of some shells to make the buttons for the starter motor, steering wheel and machine guns (for said boat). The boys played in the boat for almost an hour – incredible considering they both said that had no desire to go to the beach today… 🙁

Then 12:30 came around and our boat arrived on the beach – big enough for 12 passengers and the pilot. The team got the boat ready for us and then pushed us out to the ocean although they were just not quick enough and the waves bashed the boat over to the left before the pilot could get the engine down so we had to rather hastily dismount before the boat overturned (slightly melodramatic, but there was definitely some pain to get us off PDQ:-)) . we got back on board and the engine doewn and we were off – just round the corner to the right and into a small inlet where a cave ahead been worn into the Rock face, and then into the next larger one. In a couple more we found the pilot hit the gas and looked to be aiming for a small hole that ultimately swallowed the entire boat and we disappeared into the mouth of the cave, out of the ocean and into our own tiny hole in the rock – holy hell, this was unexpected but breathtaking all at the same time -WOW. 

We continued on to see a few more similarly amazing caves that the boat only just fit into but were breathtaking each and every time. Sadly, the camera ran out of battery about half way around so we do not have photographic (or video) evidence of some of the most impressive caves but the imprints will be in our minds forever 🙂

The cost for this mind blowing experience was €17.50 for adults and €12.50 for the kids – easily the best €100 of the vacation hands down. To the point that I think we will be returning before the week is out for a return journey to see it all again 🙂

Hopefully, tomorrow is water park day at Slide and Splash in Lagoa although our tickets are good for any day this week so we will see how we feel in the morning.

Happy Holidays folks – we are having a ball 🙂