any advice to dive in Portugal please?

we're expected to ge tot Portugal for some 5/6 days and would love to dive for at least 2/3 days. Our plan was getting to Lisbon and then either dive in teh near area and just get down to Algarve and then look for a nice place to dive for a while.
I guess we would need some more time in order to visit lovely Portugal as a tourist plus diving in either Madeira/Azores.
Anyone know which are the best places to dive in Portugal please? we'll get to Portugal by car from Spain. Any advice please? thx

I'm very interested in diving in the Azores too. I will be there in Nov. 2005. I'll be watching your thread.

Hey Laudrup

I'm Portuguese and hope this comment still goes on time . Must tell you to be frank that Portugal is not a diving mecca, but it allows you to "kill the vice". The places I wolud recommend would be:

1 - Berlengas (islands in front of near Peniche - aprox. 80 - 100 kms North of Lisbon); this is normally where you get the best viz, quite cold water. You have to take a boat in Peniche and cross to the main island. Probably not very suitable if you want to go to Lisbon and the Algarve (south).

2 - Sesimbra (approx. 35-40 kms south of Lisbon) - good dives: River Gurara (sunken boat); Ponta da Passagem; other spots. Viz is usually not bad, but for example I've been there last saturday and it was very poor (apporx. 5-6 m). It depends. Dive Centres - Nautilus-Sub; Bestdive; Cipreia are the best.

3 - Algarve - Sagres - Several spots. Usually good, but sometimes poor viz as well. Dive center that I know: ScubaDoo in the port;

4 - Algarve - Lagos - The best dives I did in the Algarve, unfortunately with a german guy that closed down 2 or 3 years ago. There is a new dive center in the marina, but never tried it.

5 - Algarve - Tavira - Pedra do Barril - Never been there, but heard it's nice.

Hope this helps. The important is to dive, anyway.
Un saludo.

I also live in Portugal and can agree with the advice given by AFS. I have made dives recently in sagres and it was great with Cesar at scubadoo, his number is 351 965559073. I learned how to dive here and there are some really interesting and challenging places to dive. Also in the Lisbon area is Cascais, sometimes the Viz is poor, but other times it can be great(for here) with 11m. Speak with Fabian at Exclusive Divers. They have a wreck in 10m that is close to the marina. Also lots of life in the bay, octopi, cuttlefish, crabs, nudibrachs of all colors, and kelp! Not bad. hope that this helps.

Theo

I tried my best to dive in Portugal, and ended up leaving disapointed. Try to organise something before you get there (one resort had gone out of business). Before I left I emailed some resorts in the different places I was going and found that language was a big barrier, so I think you should suss out who you would like to dive with and what areas to visit. Good luck!