The Algarve’s four sandbar islands stretch along the coast for 45kms between the tip of the isthmus known as Praia de Faro to Manta Rota in the east. All four share similar physical characteristics but they have developed in different ways. Ilha Deserta is the least developed, completely uninhabited and a source of inspiration for Jane Skingley, one of Britain’s most acclaimed maritime artists.
The few dozen buildings that once stood on Isla Deserta were demolished in order that it could be given maximum protection status within the Ria Formosa Nature Park. Permission was then granted for a row of huts to be constructed for storing fishing tackle and a restaurant on stilts. There are no other man-made structures.
Visitor numbers are restricted by the limited ferry service that departs from a jetty beside Faro’s city walls. The boat arrives on Isla Deserta close to ‘mainland’ Portugal’s most southerly tip, Cabo de Santa Maria, marked by a lighthouse. Just across the water is another lighthouse on Isla Culatra.
Jane recalls from her first visit to the island, “White topped rollers were curling along the man-made piers throwing bubbles of foaming spindrift into the air. Fishing boats plied their way through turbulent rising crests and deep troughs. It was an exciting scene.
“From the island’s Atlantic beaches the roar of waves was constant and I noticed the water turning turquoise as it fell onto the coarse white sand. A huge variety of shells littered the shoreline, glinting like jewels along the beach.”
After making several more visits Jane has created huge dramatic canvasses capturing many aspects of the seafront beaches. She has also studied and painted the island’s lagoon shore. Here the water laps more calmly and the sand is noticeably finer. Boardwalks protect the fragile vegetation where colonies of sandwich terns can be found nesting from late spring to early summer.
“The views are incredibly serene,” says Jane. “The natural world seems entirely undisturbed. Worryingly all of these low-lying landscapes are threatened by the melting of the icecaps caused by global warming. Their unusual ecology might disappear forever. I am glad to have taken the opportunity of painting Isla Deserta while it still exists.”
Similar barrier islands frame 13% of the earth’s coastlines. They etch the eastern seaboard of North and South America, parts of West Africa and India, south and western Australia and along most of the North Sea coast of continental Europe. A few are located in southern Europe along the Mediterranean Sea, as well as protecting the Atlantic coastlines of Spain’s Costa de la Luz and the eastern limits of the Algarve.
An exhibition of Jane Skingley’s recent paintings is currently on display at Galeria Côrte-Real in Paderne. Her work has also been selected by the Royal Society of Marine Artists to celebrate their 65th anniversary and displayed in London’s Mall Galleries. She has exhibited at Glyndebourne Opera House, the Henley Festival and across three continents.
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Ferry Service www.ilha-deserta.com, 918 779 155
