What it actually is
- Surface
- Pebble (calhau)
- Municipality
- Calheta
A cobbled village on a shelf above the sea, with a boulder shore and a name known to surfers well beyond this island. The swell that made the name is the reason there is nobody watching the water.
What the state says about it
It is not named in Annex IV of Portaria n.º 204-A/2026/1 at all. No bathing season, no lifeguard designation, and no water quality sampling published under that regime.
It does not appear in the “praia de banhos” column. The annex’s own footnote says that means assistance to bathers is not assured — not “sometimes”, not “in season”. Not assured.
What it costs
Free. There is no entry charge.
Getting there
It sits in the concelho of Calheta, which is how the portaria files it.
We print no bus route for this one. Route numbers are published here only for the four destinations checked against the operator’s own guides, and this is not among them.
Getting around without a carWhat we could not verify here
Carried over from the beaches page word for word, because you will meet these claims elsewhere with a confident number attached.
- Water quality at Jardim do Mar and Paul do Mar. Neither is a designated bathing water, so neither is sampled under that regime.