Mayotte

New-to-us port #35.

Comoros? What? Where?

This little known “overseas department and region and single territorial collectivity” of France, lies in the Mozambique Channel … between southeastern Africa and northwestern Madagascar. It consists of the islands of Grand and Petite Terre and some tiny islets.

We tendered to Mamoudzou on Grand Terre, and joining forces with Sonia & Boris and Younga & David, we hopped in a taxi to spend a couple of hours communing with nature at Plage Ngouja.

Hopping in the taxi was easy. Once negotiations were completed. Getting to the beach? Not so much. A ride that should have taken us an hour took twice as long due to construction in the direction we were traveling. Once past it, we fairly flew down the narrow road … except for slowing down at speed bumps in the towns and villages. The reason we inched along for about an hour was actually a relief as it confirmed that the return to Mamoudzou would not be problematic.

After a quick photo op at Plage Musical to see what is probably the largest baobab tree of our visit to Africa yet, we arrived at our destination and made our way through a resort built out of cargo containers to the beach.

No sooner were we in sight of the sand that we spotted lemurs in the trees, on the fence, and on people! The lemurs weren’t aggressive, but where food was involved they weren’t shy about climbing all over you. Younga was the only one in our group brave enough to do feed them as we stood aside and photographed the critters.

Then, it was time for the snorkelers to don their gear and head out in search of the coral, tropical fish, and turtles that reviews said were a highlight of Plage Ngouja. The rest of us — David and I — found shade under a tree … much welcome, I might add, when the sun deigned to come out.

Unfortunately for the snorkelers — except for the one turtle Younga saw — there was nothing to see in the water, which was a little murky due to the silt carried down by the recent rains. We later learned that the turtles were in a lagoon on the far side of the beach. At least the Indian Ocean was warm and everyone seemed to enjoy their swim.

As anticipated, the return drive was uneventful and took just under an hour. By 5:30p, we were on the tender back to Insignia for the 7:00p sailaway. For some reason, however, it was well after 9:00p when we felt the ship finally moving. A mechanical issue? A medical emergency? A delayed tour? We don’t know. Maybe we’ll get some intel tomorrow.Read more