Sakatia Lodge, Nosy Be

The whale sharks appeared last year end of Sept just when I left the island. This year I planned better to get the chance of an encounter with these amazing gentle giants. Bingo, it worked as Giorgia our marine biologist and dive guide had promised “these guys are cruising around somewhere”. We looked for seabirds flying around on one spot or floating in a tight circle. Often we saw a feeding frenzy of Bonitos around these places. Gi explained, it´s some kind of food chain, there are small fish close to the surface feeding on algae and plankton floating in a thick layer around. The Bonitos and birds were chasing these. Underneath often cruised a whale shark with open mouth. Already on our first try we encountered one of these awesome creatures swimming in slow motion towards us. It was a huge one at least 11 m. One yellow pilot fish right in front of his mouth, a couple of remora hanging underneath it´s pectoral fins or cruising around on the animal. The GoPro Heroes clicked away like hell. The results we together looked at later at the beach, each one showing his best shots, some I feel had already edited theirs. We several times met these guys then. Some bigger w sharks stayed around a while even sometimes turned around to meet us head on. The smaller animals often accelerated even though it´s tail moved slowly onwards, soon disappearing in the plankton soup with no chance for us to follow. On our way home from one of these outings with dolphins jumping beside the boat, our captain shouted “baleine” which means whale, pointing to the horizon. Everybody is frozen in motion then wild action starts. With Hero too far away some tried with their cell phones to take pictures. And really in the distance two humpback whales surfaced, blew, and seconds later two flukes lifted out of the water to say bye before their dive down into deep blue. The captain told us it could take 40 min or more before they would come up again and nobody knows where. The M government does not allow you to enter the water with sea mammals unless you are already in. Normally these guys are not supposed to be here anymore but on their migrating route further south already.
Travelling into Africa you need a lot of patience and stamina not to hit the roof. Immigration into Nosy Be was awful and slow. The officer took his time with the guy right in front of me, I saw some money (40 €) changing hands and disappearing fast under the table. With me he asked where I stay – Nosy Sakatia – again where – Sakatia Island Lodge – tip tip – excuse me –tip tip – sorry I´m short, looking seriously pissed off, he looked through the pages of my passport then I got my stamp. Shame and disgrace for the tourist board and the immigration office. Same happened at the carousel, where six guys stood around, only 2 slowly taking luggage from the trailer onto the carousel, the others talked together. It took ages for the suitcases to appear till I noticed it, tourists pointed out theirs and got it faster in the hope of a tip. Mine was one of the last to swing round. This as a start of your holidays can easily spoil your whole arrival and fun to have reached your destination.
Mitsio wreck, a 35 min ride from the lodge along Nosy Be and the beach of HellVille but worth it. Tons of fish on the bottom and around the wreck, tuna chasing fusiliers, a big stone fish hiding underneath the reling, a crocodile fish and turtle holding siesta next to the hold, 5 yellow tail barracuda on the bottom near the bow, lion fish, puffer and thousands of small fish cruising around, amazing scenery with plenty of plankton in the water, vis less than 5 m, luckily we are the first boat on the site.
Mahavelona, a plateau like most of the sites with a fantastic coral garden, small overhang and huge gorgonia with bannerfish hanging around and a small bunch of sweetlips at the bottom. Looking up I see a school of unicorns cruise by, some surgeon and fusiliers mix in between. Once in while there is a turtle feeding or slowly surfacing for air, a blue spotted ray hides in the sand, only his features tell me what´s there. For macro guys the reef is a feast. Average dive time is 55 min around more or less 20 m. The boat is ideal as the platform reaches water level so easy giant stride in and out you just reach your gear into the captain’s hands.
For me the absolute top and best dive here was to a place called “7 little sharks” which was a bit outside the regular routes and took 40 min to reach. It was a plateau which fast sloped down to 40 + meter there leveling out into sandy area. The coral was totally different to the other places we´ve been to so far. I wondered what´s different and discovered, there were no soft coral or gorgonian around only a stunning reef garden built only out of hard coral. Narindra our guide led us along the slope to the right, Gi with a bunch of Austrian divers turned left. I slowly kicked down to 30 m level all the time looking out into the blue. I mean the name was supposed to be an omen for pelagic. Far away in the distance I spotted a white tip which soon was gone in the blue even though the vis was 30 + meters. My Uwatec showed close to deco, to reach a good solid number I stretched my arm until it showed 33.3 m. Looking around I hardly could see my group somewhere above me on the slope, only their bubbles gave me a rough idea, where to swim. I had just reached them when they started their slow ascend along the slope. Narin pointed and you could be sure, when she signals, something special waited. Big surprise, a leopard shark was laying in the sand waiting for us to catch his/her portrait. N told us on board, in juvenile years people call these species zebra shark cause instead of points scattered all over it´s upper body it has lines along the body, a truly amazing creature. On the surface an ocean calm like a mirror with us the only boat around.
2 nd dive this day took us to “the pool” where pieces of a very old Renault car lie scattered around 11 m on sandy bottom. Everybody was looking for small stuff which is not really my idea of a lovely dive site but still fun. They placed several pallets with bottles on the bottom as artificial reef. So far not much had grown there or accepted the place.
Each morning around five I got a cute wakeup call by Lemurs goofing around on the roof of my bungalow, first they chatted, then quarreled, then joined in a group feast on a mango tree next to my bungalow. A sweet way to start your morning, took some pictures and one guy even stretched down to me to grab a piece of fruit. The Lemurs here are luckily not tame as in other places on M where sometimes they are a bit of problem, when begging too forcefully for a treat, even sitting on your shoulder. A tourist attraction sure, which could turn nasty easily.
Jose the owner offered a special “dish” next morning. He would guide us to “Atlantis” a site not often visited even some of his instructors had not seen it, so it was to 3 guest 3 guides, safety pure. He gave a detailed briefing. He warned of current and suggested negative entry would be then a good idea. He asked to clearly signal to him when we reached 2 min away from deco. Two pinnacles were close to the main place, let´s see if we find these. Calm seas and no current waiting for us, all were excited to find what´s in store there for us. We kicked down to a deeper plateau with plenty of boulders scattered all over the area. At the edge a bit of a drop off went deeper, we swam along there. Nearly at the end of A a cut allows a swim through with gorgonian to left and right of it. We touched 33 at the exit. Vis medium deep around 15 m got better on our way up. Plankton in large chains (Salben?) and a couple of blueish jelly floated around us with their typical umbrella like motion. I love to take pictures from below that animal towards sky and sun. We all were happy and thanked J for that special gift. On our way home we rounded Sakatia from the other side, a first for me to see all the other beaches and resorts.
It was my 3.trip to M and again it seemed I would go home without diving Atnam, the famous place where a deeper canyon takes you to a fantastic gorgonian forest left and right. Sometimes Nosy Be dive center show pictures on their facebook page. If you want to watch this have a look into youtube https://youtu.be/aLcFMe93g7g?si=MVswoGmH47sk4bh_ . For Sakatia it would mean a 1 h trip to reach the place, a bit too far for them even when I offered to pay extra for fuel. J played it down to me with “it´s only a deeper canyon with gorgonian”. So it seems it wasn´t to be, or would need a 4. trip plus maybe a catamaran to the outer islands which I had initially planned. To console me they promised some exploratory deep dive for my last day there to Mahavelona Canyon. We would reach the already visited plateau, then turn left to the edge where a tunnel led from the top into the wall. This we missed on the first try, but had a school of juvenile barracuda with around 10 bigger ones hiding behind. We would then return to the plateau and small wreck. We found the entry, all 3 went through then noticed, 2 Napoleon in the distance watched us, our computers showed only little bottom time left. So this meant good bye to N S for me.
I feel the area definitely has it´s potential for big stuff you just need to find it. 2007 on my first visit we had humongous schools of humphead parrot fish which approached us head on where you saw more the sharp teeth in front than the whole group, awesome encounter. This certainly proves there is more around than you estimate. Maybe a marine protected area like Nosy Tanikely would be a good idea for other areas as well. There you will find aquarium like scenery plenty of fish, even small sharks and batfish. Without overfishing nature it seems recovers fast and would be a lasting tourist + diver attraction.
Most days I shared my dives with an UK couple Jan and Andy which turned out to be the ideal buddy mix. We gave each other plenty of space between us, roaming around each with his/her own itinerary, as long as we still could see the other bubbles, and the guide was the umbilical cord for us, only banging on the tank when we exaggerated things. We knew and obeyed the important rule : a good buddy is in the same ocean as you” We had a lot of fun together.

Many European tourists chose Africa as vacation destination, as there is hardly any time change so no jet lag at all even after a 10 h flight. Africa has a lot to offer, there is South A with Capetown, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Djibouti and a lot of islands around like Mafia, Mauritius, Mayotte to name a few. I picked Madagascar, Nosy Sakatia this year as I had fond memories of my stay on Nosy Be in Sept 2007, warm water, good vis, beautiful coral reef, great + some deep dives with a Swiss/French instructor, relaxed diving ideal for a septuagenarian which I now am. Saw a picture of a tiny bungalow in between lush tropical forest and thought, hey this is the right place, I love to get my own room with nobody else around. Normally I favor the more costly direct flight to a stop over. This time my travel agent suggested the rather modest priced flights with Ethiopian Airlines via Addis Ababa. Well, why not try, this would mean 2 flights of around 5 h (a bit more home) with a layover of 4 h to stretch your legs and grab some cappuccino. I booked this the first time for Sept 2020, you can guess what happened. Only the fourth run worked, all others had to be cancelled cause the country closed it´s borders to Western tourists, maybe due to a rather low Corona vaccination rate in M. Ethiopian Airlines offered online check in which I tried only to find out I was not eligible ?! They had an upgrade offer to business for 480 € or you could vote yourself how much it´s worth it for you. Two days before departure they would tell you if your offer is acceptable. Would I have been eligible had I clicked on upgrade “yes please”?! With the machines at the airport it was the same problem. For my flight home they offered 1 free seat beside you for 80 € the whole row for yourself for 180 € - no thank you. Masks were not required on the long haul to Frankfurt, common sense however dictated that sitting tight together for 6 h, 60 % of the passengers did not think it necessary. A A seems to be a kind of turnstile for Africa same as Dubai or Singapore are for South East Asia. I saw all kinds of destinations shown on the board, some places I never heard of. Nosy Be is the so far best developed area of M. First it´s been the French who found this vacation place and started developing business and construction nowadays it seems the Italian took over that job. Safely landed on Nosy B, you need a visa for the country which you can apply for online, naturally it costs money, in this world nothing is for free any more. ¾ of an hour by car via streets full of holes and 10 min by boat got me to the beach of N S. Giorgia, an Italian marine biologist manager dive guide factotum for the lodge welcomed me. I got Mango 1, exactly the bungalow I had seen on the picture, however Jose the owner told me not to unpack too much. He actually gave me an upgrade to a lovely more spacious bungalow because I had stayed faithful with my booking for nearly 2 years of C 19. You reached that one via a so called “stairway to heaven” the bungalow sat nearly on top of a slope overlooking a lush blooming greenery with bougainvillea frangipani etc and the whole bay – awesome postcard scenery. It was stunning and in the evening I felt like a princess when I saw the queen sized bed covered by mosquito net looking like a canopy above. Mosquitoes I mostly noticed during sunset. My doc had given me Malarone as stand by just in case, I took some “no bite” spray with me, coils were offered but not really needed. N S has some nice trails leading along mangroves to sunset points, I was surprised that in some parts on the hillside the earth was nearly red, maybe iron in it. Butterflies, lizards, 1 chameleon and getting dark lemurs came out of their hiding places jumping around in the trees or messing in the garden but not really tame. Nature is all around you so don´t be surprised when a gecko is falling from the ceiling, a frog swims in your toilet or a hermit crab wanders across your sheets. Along the awesome beach you can visit a local village with some small restaurants, stalls selling souvenirs like ylang ylang or vanilla oil, handicraft like colorful sarongs and wood carvings. Kids are running around everywhere, they are cute and know, once you’ve taken a picture you can show it to them. You should watch their faces when they spot themselves on your cell phone or digital camera, surprise and delight showing clearly. I had booked half board. Breakfast was fruits, banana, pineapple, jack fruit, cold cereal, yoghurt, eggs to order, pancakes. Lunch offered different snacks like croque monsieur/madam, hamburger, sandwich, salads. Dinners were daily a new pleasure and surprise. It was magic to your eyes and taste buds what they served, whether it was fish meat or delicious concoctions of French and Madagascar cuisine, your whole being was feasting on it, mouthwatering highlights were the shrimps or squid fresh out of the kitchen. Tonight they served “nem” (Vietnamese) as entrée and fish shrimps and vegies cooked and brought onto your plate packed in banana leaves even tied with some rope. You had to open these and pour the contents over the rice, lovely indeed desert brought 3 pieces of pastry with vanilla cream, yummy. The staff soon learned that my drinks were like a traffic light either red or green – grenadine or peppermint syrup.
The dive center sits right behind the office and small shop. They have a lot of Scubapro rental gear and good for me steel 12 or 15 liter that means no extra weight necessary. You nowadays seldom find steel tanks on tropical destinations, some praise steel and detest aluminum, don´t know the advantages of either one in tropical climate. They offer Nitrox and even night dives with fluorescent light, the latter I was tempted to try, but when I heard I need extra filter for mask and camera I stayed away, am not that keen on diving in darkness.
To give lazy Mike a little push Jose the owner offered a two tank already early next morning. We went out of the bay far into the open ocean and lovely blue called Banc Louis. Water had 26 degrees C, vis was a good 15 m, we cruised through a nice coral garden with an astonishing variety and abundance of hard coral. Fish larger than 20 cm were rare, but those with eyes for small stuff would have been happy. We heard some whales singing, but under water it´s difficult to point out where exactly it´s coming from and how far away, might be a mile or even more for sound travels far. The boat has a platform reaching water level so entry and exit is easy with giant stride and push up. Dive 2 brought us inside the bay to Mireillas Garden not too far away from the resort. Vis was poor 6 m puuh, a bizarre coral garden with only 1 or 2 species covering whole areas in an unbelievable density. I call them plate coral some say Vietnamese hat, the expert calls them “Halomitra”. These are the concave/convex round things with lines running from the center outside, mostly brownish color with a bit of blueish ring outside. You find them mostly in diameters of say 20 – 30 cm, here however these were much larger. I made it a habit to turn them around when I spot one “upside down” with white “belly” which I feel the trigger fish are responsible for. But I noticed these creatures survive the upside down and often turn brown again on the belly, maybe the Polyps wander from the back to the front. The reason behind the abundance of only one species in a place has still to be researched. Are there ideal conditions on that site for this animal like you have one species of flower or tree sometimes? It will be interesting to learn more on that subject. Giorgia will find out what´s the reason behind this. Often she pointed out small creatures under water I didn´t know exist and would never have found on my own. She explained reef structure and built up to me. Often on safety stop we both admired the many different transparent plankton species floating around us, jellyfish, salps etc. ideal food for whale sharks which didn´t show. Next day however we encountered the real thing when we cruised out of the bay. 3 times a humpback was blowing, when we got closer he showed it´s fluke and was gone, too fast for the Hero to catch. They don´t allow you to go into the water with mammals like dolphins or whales if you´re not already in, whale shark ok whales not. This seems to be a good idea if it works and people follow that rules. All dive centers work together on that and when there is a sighting of big stuff a WhatsApp info goes round to everybody. Dive 3 was La Grotte, which not really is a grotto but a sort of deep window or tunnel where you can pass through with enough space around not to touch any of the really stunning coral all around there. Glass fish in a nearby overhang, sweetlips hovering around some table coral, some jacks rushing around us. We found some huge moray eels, one brown and some leopard, where the guide played with it´s tail to bring the animal a bit more out of it´s hole. The size of gorgonian nearly in all places are awesome, often you had a whole forest of them for example at Rosario. What surprised Jose and I was the fact that in some places you had such a variety and abundance of fish, you hardly knew where to look first and take pictures of. Other places showed nearly nothing bigger than 20 cm and pelagic you could count on the fingers of one hand. The best place was Mohavelona wreck, amazing soft coral on the wreck, glassfish in the wheel house, a blue juvenile angel with white rings hiding in the upper structure, this guy I just love, it´s such a wonderful creature. Above the wreck a mix of unicorn surgeon fusiliers striped barracuda yellow snapper in small schools danced around. On the wreck lion fish, scorpion underneath some winch a crocodile, a really very enjoyable dive. I dive with a 5 mm semi dry Beuchat 4 max which is a bit tight and the inner fabric makes it difficult to pull over arms and legs. So I got a Lycra overall as kind of rash guard, now it easily slips across. 5mm and 26 C for 1 hour are acceptable but still I happily soaked up the sun during surface break. Coming home from one trip I noticed the mangroves to the left of the bay only few m away from the resort. It´s worth snorkeling there, it´s the kindergarten for many species and when you continue onwards your pass a field of sea grass where often turtles cruise around and a bit farther away the so called pool, more or less their house reef. At low tide you sometimes had to walk 250 m into the bay to reach the boat, the captain had to make sure to anchor far enough away for him to make sure to get off again. High tide nearly reached the wall at the resort.
There are days where you better stay at home. We went out to a place called Unicorn. The captain checked with GPS and threw a marker buoy with weights on a long rope. We jumped in, poor vis and current hit us pushing away from the reef into sandy area in 25 m. My Uwatec beeped the whole time, I checked, it was switched to 99 % oxygen. At lunch time I had shown my buddy which settings there are on my computer and forgot to reset into regular dive mode. I expected it to soon go into emergency mode as we were in 24 m or on the surface at the latest – nothing of that, it continued working properly even for the next dives. Well we fought the current to at least reach the reef. After 20 min of doing this and not really succeeding an obese lady showed half tank. Later she had a good excuse during C 19 with all the pools closed at home she had no chance to exercise at all and gained 15 kg. After 30 min I gave the big X sign for abort and slow ascend. The guide lost 1 weight thus his buoyancy and couldn´t hold his safety stop. Urgs to all that.
Most days I did the morning dive outside the bay where the vis was better and more chance of big stuff. In the afternoon vis often rapidly decreased due maybe to tide so plenty of time for siesta and reading.
With Nosy Sakatia Lodge I found the most peaceful quiet tranquil place you can imagine. Ideal for all those who really need to switch off and don´t need TV and daily news every day.