Ilha Deserta by Boat: The Island, the Cape and Your Time Ashore

Ilha Deserta, officially Ilha da Barreta, has no village, one restaurant and some 10 km of beach. A boardwalk of about 2 km runs through the dunes, and the beach curves round to Cabo de Santa Maria, the southernmost point of mainland Portugal. You can only get there by boat. From Faro that means the scheduled ferry from the Porta Nova pier, 45 minutes each way all year, or a tour that stops on the island as part of a longer trip.

How long you want there decides the boat. For Deserta as a swim stop on a morning that also takes in Farol village, with a guide on board, the trip named after both is Formosamar’s Deserta and Farol catamaran. It lasts three hours, with an hour at Farol and 20 to 30 minutes on Deserta, and it’s from $48 on the booking platform when we checked, rated 4.7 from 1,071 reviews. If the walk to the cape is the point, take the ferry instead; it’s further down.

What’s on the island

Nobody lives on Deserta. Animaris - Animação Turística Lda, which runs the beach concession as well as the ferry, lists toilets, showers, boardwalks, loungers and umbrellas, the Estaminé restaurant, the Bar do Cabo and a beach bar, with a lifeguard in front of Estaminé during the bathing season. An umbrella with two loungers cost €25 when we checked in October 2026 (€10 for the umbrella alone, €8 for a lounger), and one September visitor called that expensive. Further along the sand is one of Portugal’s nine official naturist beaches.

Estaminé is the only restaurant. It says it opens for lunch every day, all year, yet a visitor in mid-October 2025 found nothing open. Book ahead, or bring a picnic and water.

The boardwalk is the island’s walk. Animaris’s own listing gives it as 2 km, and one walker describes a loop that starts on the lagoon side and comes back along the ocean beach. On a 45-minute stop with Islands 4 you, a passenger had to walk “really quickly to do the full loop to get back to the boat in time”. On a 30- or 45-minute tour stop you’ll have time for a swim or a brisk walk, not both.

The cape and the lighthouse are on different islands

Cabo de Santa Maria is a point on the curve of Barreta’s ocean beach. It’s the southernmost point of mainland Portugal; the country’s southernmost point is out in the Selvagens Islands, part of Madeira.

The lighthouse that carries the cape’s name, the Farol do Cabo de Santa Maria, stands across the water at Farol, on Ilha da Culatra. The inlet between the two was opened for the ports of Faro and Olhão early in the 20th century, and it split the old island in two. The light still works, but visits are suspended while it is renovated (as of October 2026). With an hour at Farol on Formosamar’s trip, you’ll see it from the village.

Ferry or tour: your time on Deserta

From-prices per person on the booking platform, October 2026. The Porta Nova pier and the marina are a few minutes’ walk apart.

The $11 listing is a return ferry ticket, not a tour. It buys a seat each way on Animaris’s scheduled catamaran, about 45 minutes through the channels, with free time on the island in between. You name your boat back when you leave Faro, and Animaris says it can change the time if there’s space. No guide or commentary is listed. One September passenger, finding a single restaurant and little else, wished they had booked an earlier return, so ask about the last crossing back when you board.

For a first look at Deserta with Farol thrown in, and someone explaining the lagoon on the way, Formosamar’s catamaran is the easy answer.

Check dates for Formosamar's Deserta and Farol trip

Which Deserta boat suits you

Prices, ratings and review counts from our October 2026 data check; operators use seasonal pricing, so treat them as the shape of the market, not a quote.

Before you go

Lifeguards work only in the bathing season and only at set beaches, and the currents near the inlets are usually very strong. There’s little shade on the sand. Formosamar asks for swimwear and a towel in spring and summer and waterproofs in autumn and winter, and it can change times and routes for the weather or the tides. Pets aren’t allowed on any of these boats.

The Ria Formosa islands guide covers Culatra and Armona, ferry or boat tour compares the public ferries with the tours, and the homepage lines up every boat.

Island facts from Animaris’s beach page, Portuguese Wikipedia and the lighthouse authority; boat details from the listings and their reviews. Checked October 2026.