Mainstay has a lot to answer for.
Readers of a certain age will recall the erotic charge of those tiny breasts in triangular bikinis and the hoisting of sails to the sound of ‘You can stay as you are for the rest of your life, or you can change to Mainstay’. In 1974 they plunged into reefs off Mauritius; 1978 saw them chopping open coconuts on a Seychelles beach; in 1983 they were sailing across the Barrier Reef, a plangent voice crooning, ‘There is so much to do, waiting in front of you.’ Watching those girls in the adverts frolic on palm-lined beaches, a thirst took root that no cane spirit could ever quench. Years later I pitched the idea of writing a guidebook on the Indian Ocean islands to my American editors. With a somewhat perverse grasp of geography, they suggested India instead. I persevered, and later wrote chapters on Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia. I circumnavigated Mauritius in a cheap rental, ticked off Mozambique’s Quirimbas and Bazaruto archipelagos; and finally saw Seychelles. Writing mainly for dollar-wielding clients, I stayed in some luxurious lodges, their air conditioners, minibars and plunge-pool filters an oppressive hum of opulence under which my Mainstay fantasy wilted. The second time I heard about Nosy Be, I was sitting at a candle-lit table with a stranger assigned to look after me, toes curled into Benguerra Island’s powder-soft sands. We’d been making the usual small talk – tracing the knots that had led to our being tethered there for the night – when I asked him where he’d had his best holiday. He answered without hesitation, and proceeded to describe two idyllic vacations spent island-hopping off the coast of Madagascar with friends. They’d chartered a catamaran, dropping anchor alongside deserted beaches, snorkelling pristine coral reefs and feasting on fresh fish. ‘Not expensive either,’ he said, waving a vague hand at a nearby thatched bungalow that cost five-digit dollars. He shook his head. ‘You really need to get there.’ Life offers up miracles aplenty – less than a year later, I met a travel blogger called Dawn Jorgensen who asked me and fellow journalist Eugene Yiga if we would be interested in joining her on an islandhopping trip along the northwest coast of Madagascar on a motorised catamaran.
Iwas so close that if I reached out, I could place my hand on his tiny bald head. I had been told he was probably older than 80, but he swam with effortless grace along the seabed, tugging at grasses. I timed it so that we broke the surface together, the green turtle’s mottled head now surreally in focus. He opened his tiny, parrot-like beak to gulp in air before he dived back down, leaving me buoyant with joy. It was yet another miracle of sorts. When we arrived on Nosy Be, driving through narrow lanes fringed with flowers drooping like little lanterns, I was still in the grips of a vicious norovirus. Leeched and listless, I was taking my antibiotics with tepid mineral water. We had bumped across the island in search of an ATM and then clambered aboard a boat with a South African
couple who were beaming at the prospect of returning to Sakatia Lodge for the third time. A boat collected us and we motored across the narrow stretch of water that separates the islands of Nosy Be and Nosy Sakatia. Backdropped by lush jungle from which lemurs apparently make occasional forays to pick mangoes, the lodge sits perched above a curve of sand lapped by translucent water. There are no fences, no gates or armed askaris. With just 11 bungalows, Sakatia Lodge is an intimate, family-run haven of comfort, renowned for its dive school. That afternoon the three of us walked along the beach to the village restaurant. There was no sign, just a few tables set under palm trees, embroidered tablecloths in various hues fluttering in the breeze. No one spoke English but it didn’t matter because there was only one dish: succulent fish, served with rice and a fresh salad. We washed it down with local beer, then wandered back to the lodge, our feet lapped by water so alluring that we plunged in, leaving our belongings on the beach. I could have spent the week lolling in Sakatia’s waters but the next day we boarded our four-bedroom floating home and met the crew: chef Frederik Raphael Zamany, general assistant Noel Djamazara and skipper Stephane Helou, who donned his Aviators, gunned the engine and nosed us into the breeze. Nosy Antsoa, a green cone jutting out of the Malagasy waters, was our first stop. We alighted on a crescent beach to look for lemurs, several of which are so habituated they fed off bits of banana offered in open palms. Conservation
ethics aside, it was a thrill to feel their leathery fingers grasping ours. That night Stephane motored eastwards into the brown mouth of a river he called the Barahamamy. He anchored near a fishing village, unreachable by road. A man paddled out bearing jars of wild honey and preserved lemon – a bartered exchange. The next morning we rowed across to a thatched compound. Its pathways were pristine – not a shred of litter anywhere, just neat rows of drying fish. A woman in a red sarong swayed to the rhythm emanating from a transistor radio. We entered the thatched school – a single room on stilts that smelt of grass and chalk – and were greeted like VIPs rather than the tatty tourists we were, gawking at their picture-perfect world. The village church had rough-hewn poles for pews, walls of bamboo and a dirt floor. The altar was a small table decorated with a large shell. It was bizarre and humbling, a time warp that had us strangely silent on our return to the catamaran. Stephane timed our arrival at Nosy Iranja with the rising tide, which washed over our feet as we walked the 750-metre sandbank that links two islets. The sea had turned green, and above the cotton-wool clouds was an expanse of blue. Nosy Tanikely, which we visited the next day, was bustling with day trippers. But in the water was a parallel universe: cobalt-blue slivers of fish flitted between pink-tipped coral and angelfish wore make-up like pop stars on acid. Later that day Noel caught an enormous kingfish; an hour later Frederik presented a plate with paper-thin sashimi slices dressed with lemon, pepper and oil. En route back to Chanty Beach we anchored off Lokobé, Nosy Be’s lowland rainforest nature reserve. This, too, is reachable only by boat, and after a short briefing we were sliding along muddy pathways, our local-village guide pointing out the wealth of creatures we would have ordinarily passed by: a pair of black lemurs, a tree frog, a leaf-tailed gecko, a pygmy chameleon – and a boa constrictor. After dinner, Dawn and I stripped off and dived into the inky black ocean under an almost full moon. It had become our evening ritual, and induced a gratitude so pure tears rolled down my cheeks. Floating on my back in the wombwarm water, I thought of my stepfather who lived out his last wishes by sailing the Indian Ocean islands with the woman who replaced my mother. It was he who first told me about Madagascar’s islands. ‘The real deal’, he said. Thinking of him here, where he was happiest, I felt a burning connection to the man who was more of a father than the one who spawned me, and was struck again by the serendipities that lead us down certain paths. How home can be a place in the heart that has no geographical boundaries. And how, as it suggests in that old Mainstay advert, no one stays as they are for the rest of their lives.