The Desertas Islands from Madeira: the boat trip, the rules, and the monk seals

The three brown ridges on the horizon southeast of Funchal are the Ilhas Desertas, and you can get there: a full day from the Funchal marina costs about 90 to 100 euros. The decision worth making before you pay is which kind of day you are buying, because the islands are a nature reserve, every boat sails on a permission from the park authority, and only some of those permissions include putting you ashore.

The reserve covers 12,586 hectares and is drawn around the islands out to the 100 metre depth contour, which is why it looks so much larger on a map than the land does from shore. The group lies on the prolongation of Ponta de São Lourenço, Madeira's eastern tip, 12 nautical miles from it and 22 nautical miles from Funchal.

There are three islands. Ilhéu Chão is the smallest, a flat table about 1,600 metres long and 500 metres wide, holding an almost constant 80 metres of altitude and reaching 98 metres at its north end, where there is a lighthouse. Deserta Grande is the one you land on if you land at all: 11,700 metres from Ponta da Castanheira in the north to Ponta do Tabaqueiro in the south, up to 1,900 metres wide, rising to 479 metres. Bugio is the southern one, long and narrow and bent like a bow, 7,500 metres end to end and never more than 700 metres across, topping out at 388 metres.

The two largest flat shelves on Deserta Grande's coast, Fajã Grande on the east and Fajã da Doca on the west, are not beaches in the ordinary sense. They are the debris of two landslides that came down at the same time in 1894.

The islands are protected because of one animal. When conservation work on the Mediterranean monk seal began in the Desertas in 1988, the regional forestry institute estimated that six individuals were left. The reserve was created in 1990 largely to keep those six alive.

It worked, slowly. By 2018 the count was 20 animals over a year old: ten adult females, three adult males, four immatures and three juveniles. Set that against the species as a whole, which has fewer than 700 survivors spread between the eastern Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and the Desertas population is both a genuine recovery and still small enough that a bad year matters. Roughly half of the pups born die in their first weeks, because the caves the mothers use expose newborns to heavy seas.

Those caves are the reason boats are kept at a distance. Nine caves in the Desertas are used by seals, seven of them only for resting and two for breeding, and the open beach at Tabaqueiro is used by breeding females during the pupping season. On Madeira itself the seals use only two. Diving anywhere in the reserve has to stop the moment a seal is present, and that is written into the regulations rather than left to good manners.

The birds are the other half of the case. Deserta Grande holds the largest colony of Bulwer's petrel in the Atlantic and possibly in the world, and the Desertas petrel, Pterodroma deserta, nests nowhere on earth except Bugio. There is also a wolf spider, Hogna ingens, found only in the Vale da Castanheira at the northern top of Deserta Grande, and around 50 species and subspecies of land snail of which 44 are endemic. The Council of Europe gave the reserve its European Diploma for Protected Areas in March 2014.

Access to the whole reserve needs prior authorisation from the Institute of Forests and Nature Conservation, which manages it, and the credential is requested through the regional SIMplifica service portal. Inside the integral protection zone, which is all the land and the sea south of Ponta da Doca in the west and Ponta da Fajã Grande in the east, the access of people and boats is simply prohibited, with one exception: the bay at Doca, the authorised anchorage, approached perpendicular to the coast on a true azimuth of 270 degrees from 32°30'33.71"N 16°30'22.44"W. Everything you will do on a day trip happens at that one bay.

Some things are banned across the whole reserve whatever permission you hold:

• Pets of any kind, except dogs working in public safety or nature conservation
• Chasing wildlife, trying to interact with it, or feeding it
• Taking anything living, and taking anything geological or subfossil
• Spearfishing, trap fishing, trawl nets and gill nets
• Exterior lights on anchored boats at night, because of the birds
• Motorised aircraft below 200 metres, and a drone needs its own authorisation on top of that

The penalties are set out in the 2021 statute that governs the reserve. Entering the integral reserve without authorisation, going into a cave, flying a drone, feeding or pursuing wildlife are all classed as very serious, and for a private individual that is a fine of 1,000 to 15,000 euros where the breach was careless and 3,000 to 30,000 euros where it was deliberate. The reserve has its own permanent wardens, so the sensible position for a visitor is to let the operator carry the paperwork and the liability.

Two operators show the range. Bonita da Madeira runs its Desertas trip on Wednesdays and Sundays from 90 euros a person, with children aged 5 to 12 at half price and under-fives free. It is a nine hour day, boarding at Cais nº8 in the Marina Nova do Funchal after checking in at the kiosk, with lunch, a glass of Madeira wine on departure and a hot drink on the way home. The boat anchors at Doca, there is time to swim, and then there is a guided walk ashore.

Ventura's full day runs 09:30 to 17:30, all year, at 100 euros for adults and 50 euros for children aged 5 to 10, capped at 16 adults. The crossing is about three hours each way, lunch and a drink are included, so are insurance and a 3 euro eco-tax contribution to the natural park, and stand-up paddle boards and snorkelling gear come out at the anchorage. Its own description of the day does not include going ashore.

Settle that difference before you book. The ten euro gap matters far less than the fact that one of these days puts you on the island and the other keeps you in the water beside it.

The reserve itself barely charges. The fee schedule in force since 14 February 2026 has no per-visitor tariff for a Desertas visit at all, and the only Desertas line in it is diving, at 7.50 euros per person per day per reserve, or 5 euros through an operator holding a protocol, free for children of 12 and under and waived for residents of Madeira. The unit changed with that February amendment: the same 7.50 euros used to be charged per dive, so two dives at the Desertas in one day now cost one fee instead of two. Almost all of what you pay for this trip is the boat.

Walking on the islands is allowed only on the marked routes on Deserta Grande and only accompanied by a member of the managing body, or by a guide that the institute has recognised for the purpose, with a maximum of 15 walkers per guide. The institute also states plainly that it takes no responsibility for transporting crew and passengers ashore. Between the escort requirement, the single legal anchorage and the state of the sea on the day, a landing is something a good operator attempts rather than promises.

The reserve is also capped. No more than 2,500 visitors a month, no more than 250 people ashore at any one time, and no more than 12 people staying overnight. Those ceilings are generous against the number of boats that actually go, but they explain why nobody is selling a Desertas trip from a beach kiosk at ten in the morning.

Diving without an institute escort is confined to the partial protection area and to the Baía da Doca. A dive site takes a maximum of ten scuba divers and one support boat, and the activity is prohibited in the presence of monk seals. Snorkelling and free diving sit under the same geography. The booking, like the visit credential, goes through SIMplifica, and the dive reservation is a separate request from the visit.

If you want a reserve dive without the crossing, the Garajau reserve sits on Madeira's own south coast just east of Funchal and falls under the same 7.50 euro rate.

About three hours of open Atlantic each way is the part that catches people. There is no shelter between Madeira and the Desertas and nothing to break the swell. Take the seasickness remedy before you board rather than when you need it. Pack a warm layer even in August, because the wind on a moving boat out there is nothing like the wind on the Funchal seafront, and wear shoes you could walk a rough path in if the landing happens.

Trips get moved or cancelled for weather, and every operator says so in its terms. Ventura sails year round; Bonita's two fixed days mean a week in Madeira gives you two chances at it, and if the first is blown out the second is your last. Book it early in your stay, not on the final day.

Dolphins and whales are genuinely common on this crossing, and the operators carry a biologist or naturalist to name what comes past. A monk seal is not common. The 2018 count found twenty over a year old, they rest and breed in caves nobody is allowed to enter, and the honest expectation is that you will see the island that keeps them alive rather than the animal itself. Our whale watching guide covers what is reliably out there by season.

Everything leaves from the Funchal marina, so the city is the obvious base and almost any part of it works; the walk to the pontoons is flat and short from the old town and the centre alike.

If you want the islands in view on the days you are not sailing to them, the slopes east of Funchal look straight out at them, sit above the summer heat in the bowl, and keep the marina ten minutes downhill. Madeira with Views lets apartments in that band, and our guide to choosing an area compares the options in full.

Can you visit the Desertas Islands on your own boat? Only with prior authorisation from the Institute of Forests and Nature Conservation, requested through the SIMplifica portal, and even then the only permitted access inside the integral reserve is the anchorage at Doca. Unauthorised access is a very serious offence with a fine from 1,000 euros.

How much does a Desertas trip cost in 2026? Around 90 to 100 euros per adult for a full day from Funchal, with children at roughly half. There is no separate entry fee for visiting the reserve; the only Desertas tariff in the current fee schedule is 7.50 euros a day for diving.

Do you get to walk on the islands? Sometimes. A landing happens only on trips that include a guided one, on the marked routes on Deserta Grande, escorted, and only when the sea at Doca allows it. Check the operator's own description before booking, because not every full-day trip goes ashore.

Will I see a monk seal? Probably not. The 2018 count was 20 animals over a year old, they rest and breed in caves that are closed to visitors, and diving stops if one appears. Treat a sighting as luck rather than as the reason to go.

• Institute of Forests and Nature Conservation (IFCN), Reserva Natural das Ilhas Desertas: about, location, how to visit, history, natural values, management and protection, and applicable legislation
• Decreto Legislativo Regional n.º 27/2021/M, the legal regime of the Desertas Islands Nature Reserve, Diário da República 15 December 2021
• Portaria n.º 370/2018 of 10 September, conditions for activities in the marine environment of the reserve and its internal regulation on human activities
• Portaria n.º 801/2025 of 10 December, as amended by Portaria n.º 48/2026 of 13 February, the IFCN fee schedule
• LIFE Madeira Monk Seal, layman's report, IFCN
• Operator pages: Bonita da Madeira and Ventura, checked 10 October 2026