The Benagil Sea Cave Adventure - Chris Papenfuss Photography

Benagil Sea Cave

The Algarve Coast in Portugal is an amazing place to visit. The beaches, coves and villages are simply stunning. As an added bonus, the whole coast line is littered with sea caves. Some are easy to visit, others not. Some or boring, others are gorgeous. One of these caves stands out, though. It is breathtakingly beautiful. You have probably seen pictures of it on the internet. I am speaking about the Benagil Sea Cave. You can find it close to a beach of the same name not too far from the tourist town of Armacao de Pera.

Easy access?

Visiting the Benagil Sea Cave is not that straight forward, i.e. you can’t just walk there. Direct access is only possible via the ocean. And that basically leaves three options: you can peek through a giant hole into the cave, you can take a boat or you can swim there. Let’s start with the easy option. It’s a simple 5 min walk along the cliffs of the Praia de Benagil to get to the top of the cave. You can gaze into it to get a sense for the size. The view is kind of neat but it’s not very satisfying and it creates as strong urge to go inside:

If you walk further along the trail you will arrive at a lookout across the Praia de Benagil – the view is not too shabby, is it?

When you walk down to the beach, you will immediately see long lines of people looking to get on one of boat trips that leave from there. We decided against that and chose to do it the proper way: work for it and swim over! (Note: most boat trips won’t allow you to get out of the boat!)

The Swim Adventure

Swimming to the Benagil Sea Cave does require calm waters. It’s not far (around 200m one-way according to my GPS) but you are basically out in the ocean with no direct view of the beach. In addition, you also want to stay far away from the cliffs as the occasional higher wave could easily push you into the rocks which wouldn’t be fun. You also have to watch out for the various boats that are in the area.

Benagil Sea Swim — It took us 10 min round-trip and that includes waiting for boats to clear the area

Arriving at the cave entrance is spectacular:

The waves were pretty high during my first swim to the cave and we had to wait a few minutes to actually get into it. But let me tell you – once you are in there you will be rewarded by amazing views. It almost feels like stepping into a natural cathedral. The hole in the top allows just the right amount of light to come in. Unfortunately, I only had my GoPro with me that day. The resulting photos were…blahh.. The contrast between the cave and the openings is just too high for this small camera:

Benagil Sea Cave GoPro — Too much contrast for the GoPro – still awesome view, though

The water bag

Unsatisfied with the photos from my GoPro, my family and I decided to give it another go. My wife had the brilliant idea to bring my Fuji X-E1 along with the Samyang 8mm fisheye in a water bag and to put it on a boogie board for added safety. What can I say: it worked like a charm:

Photos of the Benagil Sea Cave

Photographing the Benagil Sea Cave is a bit tricky. The 12mm wide angle did not really work for me and I used the fisheye, instead. There is also the tremendous dynamic range – the contrast between light and dark is huge. The photo below was processed in Lightroom with the highlights pulled back and the shadows fully opened up:

I also tried HDR: