Sunday’s litany of holiday disasters (rock falls in the Algarve, fires at various points throughout the country) also saw a group of six Dutch holidaymakers stranded in Benagil’s iconic cave during what should have been a pleasurable grotto trip.
Initially reported as a second rock fall along the coast, the truth later emerged as the shaken tourists (three adults and three teenagers) were brought safely to shore by Ferragudo’s rescue boat.
“It was not nice at all,” one of the mothers in the group told SIC TV news.
“We wanted to look into the cave and then a big wave came and the boat went PHOOPS and into the cave and we couldn’t go back. There were no rocks,” she answered the reporter’s questions. “But we were stuck in the cave and we couldn’t get out.”
The boat the group had been travelling in became lodged on a sandbank within the cave, while rescue teams succeeded in swimming all the victims out to safety.
“It was not nice,” said the woman, but certainly not bad enough to put the group off their holidays by the sea, she smiled.
Correio da Manhã suggests the boat had been rented by the group and did not have a pilot.
SIC adds that in the summer the Benagil grotto receives hundreds of visitors every day, but they are usually taken into the ‘hidden wonder’ by experienced crew.
