House & Leisure, April 2008
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"While the song may go ‘Aruba, Jamaica ooo I wanna take you, Bermuda, Bahamas…’ we’re excited to have discovered the answer to our tropical-island daydreams a lot closer to home. Madagascar has long allowed tourists to flock to its Indian Ocean neighbours, keeping its postcard-perfect beaches and endemic flora and fauna to itself. Part of the beauty of this country – and particularly the Nosy Be archipelago in the north – is that it realises our tropical island fantasies without bending to Western demands. You won’t find rows of attention-seeking hotels towering over sandy coves; here large resorts are few and far between, and you can roll out of your bed at one of a few small guesthouses straight onto your own stretch of deserted beach. And, a mere three-hour flight from Johannesburg, Madagascar’s Sakatia, Iranja, Tanikely and Komba islands are a lot easier to get to than the Beach Boys’ Kokomo.
House and Leisure recently went island hopping with Jenman Island Safaris – join us as we explore the secrets of the Nosy Be archipelago.

A PLACE IN THE SUN
John Sheppard’s Sakatia Towers on Nosy Sakatia (Orchid Island) is a short speedboat ride from Chanty Beach on Nosy Be (nosy means island in Malagasy). A former pharmacist, John sold his business in the Eastern Cape, bought a yacht and explored the Indian Ocean islands until a small bay on Nosy Sakatia stole his heart. While his friends waited, jokingly comparing his determination to John Cleese’s character in Fawlty Towers, he built Sakatia Towers from scratch. They ate their words when he unveiled his ecofriendly guesthouse. Surrounded by breathmint-blue water, this is the type of place where guests find themselves leaving messages in rhyming couplets in the visitors’ book. At Sakatia the only competition for your lounger is John’s cat Tam Tam (her name means mad in Malagasy), who may curl up next to you as you succumb to deck fever on the outdoor veranda overlooking the bay. It’s a hard place to leave!
Something strange happens to time on Nosy Sakatia. Minutes spent watching bee-eaters and fruit bats weaving in and out of mangroves, or a chameleon grooving along a branch in his slow idiosyncratic way may feel like hours. Days spent exploring this volcanic island’s vegetation and birdlife, swimming, snorkelling and enjoying lazy beach picnics slowly melt into evenings where barking geckos, the shrill cry of insects and a distant thunderstorm form the soundtrack to your dreams.

FROM HELL-VILLE TO HEAVEN
After a few days at John’s we headed back to Nosy Be where a taxi ride through Hell-Ville – the most inappropriately named place on earth – took us past groups of women draped in colourful lamba cloths, and around singing thickets of tropical vegetation. The 75-minute speedboat ride from Nosy Be’s Madirokely beach to Nosy Iranja Kely takes you thumping across swells and past giant volcanic boulders inhabited only by a mohawk of vegetation. Soon a green haze on the horizon telescopes itself into stripes of sand and surf with frangipani trees and palms bending over beach umbrellas in a scene so perfect you may need to pinch yourself. Once you’ve waded through the cobalt water to the shore, you are greeted warmly and offered a damp cloth scented with lemon grass for freshening up, followed by the quintessential island drink – the coconut cooler. At Iranja, guests sleep in secluded bungalows tucked into the tropical vegetation, and enjoy that ultimate luxury – complete privacy. You’d be hard-pressed to find a place more remote. Here you can sway in your hammock while watching the sunset on the beach directly in front of you.
A 13-hectare speck on the seascape, Nosy Iranja Kely seems to relish its solitude, reluctantly forming the far southwestern point of the archipelago. Greenback, leatherback and hawksbill turtles appreciate its isolation and return each year to lay their eggs here (iranja means turtle in Malagasy). Theo Shepherd, the manager of Iranja Lodge, is an enthusiastic supporter of the local turtle-monitoring project, which is helping to ensure that future generations of these shy creatures continue to start life here. Turtles, dolphins, whale sharks and every kind of tropical fish imaginable can be spotted at the 400-plus dive sites that surround the island. And if you prefer your adventure above the surface of the water, the lodge also offers parasailing, game fishing, waterskiing and dolphin-spotting trips. However, nothing can compare to waking at dawn to watch turtles hatch and make their brave scrabble towards the ocean.

FINDING NEMO: Liliane Ramanantsoa’s bungalows on nearby Nosy Komba are a homely sleep-over spot. On arrival you are given a garland of frangipani and ylang-ylang flowers (all freshly picked from Liliane’s garden) and coconut milk (served island style, directly from the shell). Ask Liliane to show you around her garden of fragrant lime, vanilla (which I discovered is actually an orchid), frangipani, lemon grass, jackfruit and ylang-ylang. Madagascar was once referred to as l’île aux parfums on account of the ylang-ylang groves that supplied the French perfume industry. The verandas of Liliane’s bungalows are the ideal places to enjoy a rum coco cocktail while watching local fishermen make their way across the waves in their small, hand-carved pirogues, with only the wind to guide them back to shore.

The following morning Mahomed took us to the little village of Ampangorinana on Nosy Komba (komba means lemur). Dropping anchor here means a visit to Lemur Park situated above the village. The local Malagasy consider the troop of black lemurs living on this island sacred and so they are never hunted. As a result they are quite tame and are easily coaxed from the forest canopy. A slice of banana is all it takes for a pair of human-like hands to jump onto your shoulder to steal a snack.We followed our lemur spotting with another swim and snorkel around Nosy Verona, an island so small it barely warrants a name, and then sailed on towards Lokobe Beach on Nosy Be where the crew set up camp for our last evening in Madagascar. That night I fell asleep in my tent listening to the song of a now-familiar choir of insects, while contemplating living on a boat forever."

A completely different way to explore this archipelago is by hand-built dhow, such as Mahomed Bakary’s Salama Tsara. Her name means ‘hello beautiful’, a phrase that applies equally to Mahomed’s boat as it does to the islands and beaches to which they’ll introduce you. Mahomed is one half of Madagascar Island Safaris; the other half, Ross Murray, likes to tell people that a long time ago he was a lawyer for one week before realising his mission in life was to ‘dive and sail’ – which he’s been doing ever since. This duo offers an eight-day dhow safari around their favourite bays, during which you’ll camp on isolated beaches and feast on crabs or fresh fish caught during the day’s sailing. Jenman Island Safaris arranged for us to spend our last few days in Madagascar on the Salama Tsara, getting a feel for this idyllic way of exploring the area.At first you’ll find yourself trying to predict the dip and lift of the boat on the water as you lurch about on deck, but it won’t be long before the thrill of water rushing past your dangling feet and the whip of your hair in the wind has you feeling you were born at sea.If your definition of paradise is warm clear water and a mask and snorkel, a day trip to Nosy Tanikely, situated within a marine reserve, will be the highlight of your time on the dhow. Jumping overboard into the sapphire sea, you are greeted by an awe-inspiring variety of sea life – lobsters stalk among sea urchins and coral, while turtles fly between parrot and zebra fish in an unashamed clash of colours that made me, in my lurid bikini, feel like a wallflower. It is easy to float in this otherworldly scene for hours, admiring the beautiful, spiralling swim of schools of sweetlips while you listen to the click-click of cock fish feeding on the coral.While we were finding Nemo, Safi, the cook on board, made my favourite meal of the trip – carpaccio using barracuda caught en route to Tanikely.