Mayotte

We are anchored between the cities of Mamoudzou (mam-mood-zoo) and Dzauodzi (dza- ew-zee) on the islands of Grand Terre and Petite Terre (aren't the French creative in their naming) :-) on the island country of Mayotte in the Comoros Islands off the coast of Madagascar in the Mozambique Channel. Now do you know any more then you did before about where we are. :-)
It is a little island in the Comoros chain that stayed part of France when the rest went independent. The island is actual part of the European Union and has saved itself a lot of the strife that it's sister islands in the Comoros Republic have faced. There has been so much political unrest that the economy is pretty stagnant but this little island seems to have done okay trying to develop a tourism industry to go with it's beautiful beaches and reefs.
Unfortunately I am not sure that it will ever really take off. The reefs are great but the beaches fairly coarse and the tides make the beach perfect at high tide and almost unusable at low tide. It is a pretty country and I hope it does develop in a controlled way that allows it to bring in some needed foreign currency since they have little economy to depend on otherwise.
We went snorkeling and boating around the island and saw a school of spinner dolphins that decided to hang around the boat and show off for a while and then hung around a beautiful drop-off on a coral reef and watched the fish until they made us get back on the boat and go to the ship.
As so many of the little towns around here there was a wonderful spice market close to the port.Read more