Brit Helen Loose was walking her black labrador, Beech, on the shore when she stumbled across a £225,000 drugs haul.
The 40kg cannabis resin stash at Sagres, in the Algarve, Portugal, most likely fell off a passing boat.
Her partner, Paul Moran, 49, said: “Helen was litter picking, clearing up plastic and fishermen’s nets, when she saw this bundle.
“She rang me and asked me to bring a knife.
"I cut it open and the smell was overwhelming.”
He added: “We called the police and one of them was the guy who gave me a 30-euro parking ticket a week earlier.
"We had a laugh but he wouldn’t reimburse me.
“The package seemed pretty waterlogged and it had been stormy, so police reckon it had fallen off a boat going from Morocco to Spain.”
They were told the haul was worth a quarter of a million euros, about £225,000.
Sales manager Paul was made redundant last year so he and Helen, 39, a gardener, brought forward a planned motorhome adventure round Europe to July.
The couple, from Brighton, East Sussex, have so far avoided all lockdowns travelling through France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
