Portugal - what's it like + where to dive

[dave archer]

A friend of mine is thinking of a holiday in Portugal in September, and would like to do a few days diving. Any experiences, recommended locations and dive operators much appreciated.
Fairly novice diving sought (e.g. OW/AOW with less than 30 dives).
Thanks in advance,
Dave.

[Seadart Bob]

<font color='#333399'>Chris Guimaraens is your man he lives there.
He's about these boards somewhere.

Cheers
Bob

[CotoChris]

<font color='#0000FF'>Hi Dave
Do you know roughly where your friend will be holidaying within Portugal?
If in the Algarve I can reccomend two places:

Atlantic Diving Atlantic Diving and Blue Ocean.Blue Ocean

Atlantic Diving are based in Albufeira, mid Algarve and their outings are on a catamaran doing a double dive in one outing, i.e you take two bottles and have a break in between the dive sites. They tend to dive in center-East Algarve where the waters are warmer -maybe 18-20ºc in September. The dives are fine where you normally see Conga eels and Octopus, not great dives but OK. On fridays they tend to do a wreck dive at 25m which should be fine if your friend has had 30 dives or so. Atlantic diving is by the bneach and has a café and good facilities, then you pay more for this as well, it's a good place with a family. I believe they now have a boat for diving in the west.
This year I dived in western Algarve with Blue Ocean who are near Lagos. This part of the Algarve is much prettier with rocky cliffs and clear waters. The waters are slightly cooler as it is more Atlantic based but the diving is much much better. I've found that the viz and fishlife was much superior than the east. Personally for the diving I would go here, also this part is not as affected by mass tourism as in the center of Algarve.
If your friend is holidaying near Lisbon then the Sesimbra area (south of Lisbon) has very good diving, unfortunately as I havn't dived there I can not reccomend a dive club. If he is holidaying in the north then is much more open ocean diving and very much dependent on the weather. Because of this I dive in Vigo Bay in Spain where there is more shelter (I live in the very north).
There is a full listing dive places and clubs at this site:
ScubaPortugal

If you need further info let me know.

Chris

[dave archer]

Cheers for the info Chris, that's exactly the sort of hting I was after.
Thanks,
Dave.