THANDA: Wild and Wonderful
Shaun Smillie samples the delights of a private island in the Indian Ocean — but regrets the one that got away
WE had hit something. Something big. The impact caused the boat engines to stop, leaving us dead in the rolling swell. I turned around but the huge fin of the whale shark had already dipped below the Indian Ocean.
For a split second I thought I was about to have my Captain Ahab moment, but we were in too beautiful a part of the world for this story to end badly. The engines restarted and our journey continued.
The whale shark shouldn’t have been said skipper Reuben Goddard. In all the he had been there at sea, he had never hit a whale shark. “They usually hear the boat coming and get out of the way, and they remain this time of year,” said Goddard.
This part of the Indian Ocean off Mafia Island is whale shark central; divers come from around the world to see these beasts.
Perhaps the shark had become caugh up in a fish trap, Goddard suggested. We could only hope that this gentle leviathan was OK.
Our journey that morning had begun on Thanda Island, a dot of land about 30km from the Tanzanian coast.
Thanda Island is about the size of a big smallholding in Crystal Park, Benoni.
But there are no car wrecks rusting here. The island, surrounded by coral reefs, is private playground of Swedish couple Christin and Dan Olofsson. They visit for only a couple of weeks a year, and the rest of the time it is open to guests.
In just over two years they have turned what was once a garbage-strewn stop-over for fishermen into a remote luxury getaway with more than 500 imported palm trees, a helipad and the biggest solar farm in Tanzania.
Olofsson is obviously an Ernest Hemingway fan — there is a library filled with books by or about the author. The writer’s bust sits on the shelf, staring out the window at the sea.
Hemingway would have liked it here. The whisky flows freely and there is some of the best game-fishing in the world off the myriad small islands that lie in this turquoise patch of ocean.
Sailfish, dog-tooth tuna and dorado stalk these waters. Giant barracuda the length of man and equipped with wolf-sized teeth are also occasionally taken.
Some of these fish as well as other crustaceans make it into the kitchen. Mackerel sashimi, green jobfish steaks a traditional Tanzanian prawn curry are regulars on the menu.
But the best had to be oysters plucked straight off the rocks and eaten while our feet dangled in a rock pool. All washed down with bubbly, of course.
Hunting game fish in this part of the world doesn’t require having to head out on a boat à la The Old Man and the Sea. They can ne caught a stone’s throw from the luxury lodge.
Towards sunset schools of giant trevalleys, Caranx ignobilis or GT for short, come close to shore to feed on bait fish. These predators with their sleek, rounded heads and sickle-shaped tails are built for speed and can weigh more than 60kg.
Sports anglers travel to the world’s remotest parts to hunt them. They fight hard, stripping a reel of hundreds of metres of line in seconds.
But here they came close enough to cast a lure just beyond the breakers. The GTs aren't
The best had to be oysters plucked straight off the rock and eaten while our feet dangled in a rock pool
shy, was Goddard’s taunt. Never before had I caught a GT and I have always wanted to.
That was enough to get me ankle deep in the surf, trying to get as much line out as I could. It wasn’t exactly “roughing it” fishing. A waiter ensured that there was always a cold Serengeti lager close at hand.
Suddenly Goddard noticed that the GT school had returned.
He spotted bait fish skipping across the waves, a sign they were being chased by bigger fish. I cast to where the bait fish had been jumping. On my third cast, I felt the tug.
A nice-sized fish, but it was only on the line for a couple of seconds. It was to be my only chance; I would remain a GT virgin.
The fishing, I was told, hadn’t always been that good off Thanda.
Dynamite fishermen used to operate in the area, decimating the reefs and indiscriminately killing marine life. The guest relations manager, Antigone Meda, said until recently she would hear the frump of explosions far off at sea.
But now the area, which forms part of the Shungi Marine Reserve, is better policed. Dugongs and dolphins are regular visitors and two species of turtles, the green and the hawksbill, use one of the island’s beaches to lay their eggs.
Some of the wildlife isn’t as conspicuous as the whale sharks, dugongs and dolphins. In the shallows, small shadows dart among the rocks. They are young black-tipped reef sharks, about the size of a shoe box.
The fishermen are still there. Dhows, their sails taut in the Kaskazi trade wind, still cut past the island. The traditional boats have plied these waters since at least the time of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who died in 1524 after becoming the first European to reach India by sea.
The Olofssons, who also own Thanda Safari in KwaZulu-Natal, ended up with this piece of paradise after embarking on a quest to find the perfect remote island getaway for guests willing to pay for high luxury.
The search began in the Seychelles then moved to Madagascar before ending up at Thanda.
The decision to choose Thanda had to do with its proximity to Mafia Island with its landing strip, and the sheer beauty of the island and coral reefs that protect it.
After our surprise encounter with the whale shark, we made it safely to Mafia Island where the plane that would take us back to Dar es Salaam stood on the tarmac. Ahead would be six hours of travel to Johannesburg, and back to a wintry Highveld.
But as I boarded, there was one pang of regret. I was leaving this mecca of gamefishing still a GT virgin. — Smillie was a guest of Thanda Island
This part of the Indian Ocean off Mafia Island is whale shark central; divers come from around the world