Rockpooling in Fuseta

Well actually there aren’t any rockpools but I don’t know how else to describe what I was doing one morning this week! It was gloriously sunny and the water looked so inviting, I decided to have a paddle as the tide came in. Walking back from the Life Boat House towards the Rio Tronoco I was amazed by the sealife on the waters edge.

It was the small fish that caught my eye initially, as I splashed at the waters edge I noticed dozens of tiny fish darting in front of me. Incredibly difficult to photograph but great fun to watch. You’ll almost certainly find it easier to spot the shadow of the one I did photograph than the fish itself. I think they were probably Gobies.

Further on there was a rock but for a while I thought it was some type of octopus, and even now as I look at the photograph I wonder if there was something inside! It’s that black spot which looks like an eye. As well as the sealife there were plenty of seaweed and also lovely views of the channel. All looked so pretty in the sunlight, and the water surprisingly warm.

I then caught sight of the Hermit Crabs in old periwinkle shells and forgot all about the views. As you can tell by the number of photographs I was delighted to spot these!

If you or your children have yet to tick rockpooling off from 50 things to do before you are 11¾ then Fuseta is a great place to tick it off despite the lack of actual rockpools! Out of interest how many of the 50 things the National Trust have listed have you done – I would say I had done 38 by 11¾ and most of the rest since.

Fuseta is on the Algarve railway line so easy to get to even for the day if you are in the Algarve without a car. As well as easy access to the beaches it is an interesting village with tiny narrow streets and plenty of cafes. I suspect it is very busy in the summer, and even out of season the camper van site on the front looked full.

It once was a specialist fishing village with the men either joining the Lisbon cod fleet heading off to Newfoundland for the summer months, or going out to the immediate open sea and catching Hake or working closer to shore and catching Octopus. Whilst there are still fisherman the numbers are much reduced, and Fuseta’s resident population has dropped significantly over the past 20 to 30 years. The shoreline has also changed dramatically over the past 60 years.

We’ve often thought that the Life Boat House was oddly positioned. Inaccessible at high tide, and at low tide difficult to leave. This week though we think we may have worked it out. Looking at old maps it is clear the sea channel entrance was once much closer and that the river banks at the mouth were open rather than man-made walls. As you retreat inland the river immediately opens out and we suspect this is more like how the mouth of the river once met the sea. Probably lots of river life to observe here too, but not as fun as walking in the mud as it is on the sand!