Ibo to Quirimba, Mozambique

30 Mar - 2 Apr 08

Quilálea, a romantic island retreat

31 March. We walked around the island in the cool of the day before breakfast. Flemming spent most of the day diving again, in the morning at the 'Canyon' south of the island and in the afternoon at 'Sencar Shamba' outside the reef. He saw mating turtles and dolphins on the way, and napoleon fish and a turtle under water.
Dinner tonight was by candlelight in a little hut overlooking the main beach. Afterwards, we enjoyed a chat with the South African farmer family Miles and Denise with their three children.

1 April. Flemming went on a morning walk-in dive with Dan on the house reef, Lagosta Alley and saw a turtle, ribbon eel and shrimps. Meanwhile, Angela was given a free hour’s massage in a pleasantly shaded hut overlooking the water to the relaxing sound of it lapping up to shore.
We set off in a kayak to Turtle Cove at the east end of Quilaluia where our waiter Francisco had prepared a romantic lunch for us. But we didn’t get very far before Angela found it was too hard on her back, and would have jeopardized all the good that her morning massage had done. So we walked there instead. Francisco was there in a shaded hut to greet us and open our bottle of white wine for us. Then he left us to it. We noticed they had also put out a couple of mattresses in the shade, treating us just like a honeymoon couple, and I got the giggles posing for Flemming’s camera from the mattresses.
The water was too shallow from Turtle Cove for snorkelling at that time, but we tried it anyway, hoping to see a few rays near the mangroves. We weren’t successful, but had to admit we were rather relieved not to come across a sting ray suddenly in that murky shallow water. On our return to the lodge, we had a much more enjoyable snorkel as the water is always deep enough there, whatever the tide.
Late afternoon, we went on our last sunset cruise by dhow, in Mozambique at least. Great sailing, sunset and sundowners on board. In the evening, we had another romantic dinner by candlelight, on the main beach this time.

Great place for honeymooners, but after all, that is what we are still doing 20 years later! They even have WiFi (via satellite) in the bar area, which was useful for us trying to pay our bills electronically back home in Switzerland, although this is normally not what honeymoon couples are supposed to do. However, it was just not fast enough for skyping.

2 April. Time to leave this luxury retreat. We said farewell to Ines and Nathan and then Greg and helpers took us by speedboat to the western side of Quirimba. It turns out that Greg is a friend of Jacky Cauvin, a pilot whom we are going to stay with in west Madagascar. He gave us a note for him. Hans Spithmann came again in the Quilálea jeep to take us to the Quirimba airstrip. After take-off, we flew over Quilaluia Island as a final farewell.