Hues of Blues - Indigo Bay, Bazaruto, Mozambique

I am not sure why they attached the name “Indigo” to this tropical beach lodge.  As I sit here on the balcony of my palatial room, water lapping a few metres away and facing a setting sun, my ocular senses are bombarded by not one but every other shade of blue. There is sapphire, azure, cobalt and turquoise – and that’s just the water. The sky is cerulean, blue-grey and, now as dusk approaches, violet. The sand takes on a white-blue tinge during the intense midday heat and the sails of dhows drifting past are navy and teal. I suppose they chose the colour Indigo because it has a tropical Latin sound and I am, after all, in Mozambique where Portuguese resonates about the daily life of these islands. Indigo is also a vivid blue, it tends to dominate the others by its richer and deeper hue and it flaunts the authority as one of the big seven colours in the spectrum. Indigo is a royal colour too, and thinking about it now, the colour matches this tropical beach hotel perfectly. Both are so decadently luxuriant.

Indigo Bay Lodge & Spa is Rani Resorts’ flagship hotel, a five star beach resort that stands apart from other five star resorts in Mozambique. For starters it is only one of a small clutch of resorts on the island of Bazaruto, the jewel of the archipelago, and is the most upmarket. As a distinguished guest, you are met at Vilanculo Airport by a Rani representative after disembarking from an aircraft direct from Johannesburg and whisked onto a private plane for a short but colourful flight to Bazaruto. From the air those blues swirl below in shades that make you dizzy. On arrival it feels like you are stepping onto a Hollywood film-set where you are the principal star. Everyone is at your service and the Indigo Bay staff, from the Resort Manager down cannot seem to do enough for you. The grand air-conditioned beach chalets are spaciously set apart from each other among the forested dunes, each fitted out to receive royalty (well that’s the feeling) with own balcony, beach gazebo, sunken bath, two showers (one outside and one in), satellite TV, lounge and a walk-in closet. The Bay-view chalets are even bigger, each with their own plunge pool, kitchenette and additional room. And if you happen to be real Royalty or the president of a country, there is also the Presidential Suite lording high above with a fine view across the bay to Ilha Santa Carolina. The food is scrumptious, with heavy emphasis on Mozambican cuisine. This means plenty of spicy seafood like crayfish, prawns and calamari complete with an array of hot piri-piri sauces that will shake the vulgarity out of Gordon Ramsey. There are pool/beach bars and so many pools I stopped counting. But the Magnum-opus of Indigo Bay Lodge is not so much the lodge but its Spa. Perched atop a lofty sand dune, even higher than the Presidential Suite and enjoying the best sea-view in Mozambique, this heavenly setting is the sanctuary of sanctuaries where us mere mortals may be indulged by the angelic hands of the therapists. The place really does feel rapturous, the music is soft, and the nurturing treatments on offer are dreamy and varied. My favourite was the Spa’s signature treatment, the Rasul, where you and a loving partner apply revitalizing mud to each other in a dark, steamy chamber!

Then, should you get the urge for something more sporty, there is an unforgettable horse-ride to the top of the dunes, 100m above the beach for a bird’s eye view of all the islands of the chain - Benguerra, Margaruque, Bangue and Santa Carolina. This is followed by a heart-stopping lope straight down to the bottom at the Angle of Repose – the maximum angle that sand can remain before it turns into an avalanche. I believe that angle is a staggering 42˚ and I am sure most people do it with their eyes closed. Mine were fixed wide open because I was so frozen with fear. Thankfully the sure-footed horses always take the plunge down in their nonchalant strides. It’s an exhilarating ride. The dunes also provide fertile ground for dune boarding and hiking. Other activities include renting a dhow for the day to explore other islands and remote beaches for romantic seclusion. In fact there was so much on offer that I almost forgot why my partner and I were here in the first place – to scuba dive.

It was a good thing that we did not forget, because diving around the Bazaruto Archipelago in water with every hue of blue is supposedly as good as it gets. I, as a South African, had last visited these islands over twenty years ago, during the eighties when PW Botha was making placatory noises to Samora Machel while the Mozambican civil war was slowly winding down. Back then there were no hotels on Bazaruto Island and only the concrete shells of those on the once famous Paradise and Margaruque Islands nearby. Margaruque had been tentatively kick-started by a Zimbabwean businessman who had sub-contracted the dive operation to a prominent Johannesburg dive centre where I happened to be working as a rookie Divemaster. I landed the enviable job of spending almost a month on these islands exploring and mapping the reefs for prospective South African tourists. I was flown from Johannesburg via Maputo Airport, a ramshackle place brimming with fierce immigration officials, and was worried that I may either be shot out the sky on take-off or met by AK-47-toting RENAMO guerrillas on landing on the islands and ransomed off to Russian pirates for a loaf of bread or extra ammo. Yet instead of meeting rag-tag soldiers I was in effect regaining what those pre-independence travellers holidaying in the 60’s and 70’s always knew, that as far as diving was concerned, the archipelago was pure paradise. I’ll never forget my time spent here, a hedonistic four weeks of non-stop scuba diving. Those sunny, chromatic days back in the late 80’s were forever etched on my impressionable mind, in particular was a reef on the southern end of Bazaruto called Two Mile. Here all manner of life was found, from the most colourful little nudibranchs to large Round-Ribbon Tail Stingrays. From the moment I dived this reef I would forever and unwittingly compare all subsequent dives to this one, and truthfully, few measured up to it. Although I suspected that as memory faded facts became distorted and I wondered if Two-mile Reef would stand the test of time.

Now, I wondered, after jolting my mind away from yesterday’s Rasul Treatment, that in spite of Bazaruto long being a marine protected area, how has it stood up to the enormous pressure of global warming and over-exploitation by a burgeoning local fishing population. The first sign that all was still well was when I noticed that the dive crew at Indigo Bay proudly referred to Two-mile as their premier dive spot. So it must still be good, I thought as I unpacked my dive gear. I was also happy to discover that Indigo Bay Lodge is also actively involved with local communities on marine conservation around the island - another good sign. The Indigo Bay dive-staff clearly take their scuba diving seriously, they are well-dressed, well-spoken Mozambicans whose fathers probably brandished Kalashnikovs during the war, but they are proud of their natural heritage and these days they are friendly islanders who happily assist divers into sleek new wetsuits with light-hearted banter. The dive boat, a large comfortable open deck vessel with ample shade, makes a welcome change from the crowded semi-rigids we are so used to in the south of the country where the sea conditions are far less placid. Again Indigo Bay gave the impression that I was special. My partner and I were the only divers and to me that is heavenly. I’m very particular in that regard since I dive to see marine life not other people underwater. I supposed the reason for our solitude was that the hotel’s other couples, mostly honeymooners, were too busy doing romantic stuff like hand-in-hand strolls along the beach or slinging mud at each other in the Spa’s Rasul Chamber.

Cruising out over the kaleidoscope of blue-hues, the surface of the water lacquered like a mirror without the hint of a ripple, I felt like I was about to meet a long-lost friend after two decades of absence. Rounding the southern sandy point of Bazaruto, there it was, a black exposed strip of reef surrounded by a foamy white border. Two-mile! Suddenly all the memories came flooding back, I remembered all the different segments of the reef. The best was on the seaward side toward the north, where it was deeper, and my heart leapt for joy when the boat came to a halt at that very spot and the Divemaster gave the signal to kit up. Rolling over into the warm water and descending I was surprised at how little things had changed. The coral was in a healthy state, the Plate and Staghorns were still there showing no sign of damage and the fish life among them thriving. Coral bleaching must have been minimal. More good news, a telltale sign that a reef has not been over-fished is the presence of large reef predators like Potato Bass. I saw three big beauties drifting along, inches above the reef, with that imperturbable expression that only Potato Basses have, the unflappable guardians of the deep. Nudibranchs of all colours were in abundance and there were dozens of morays sharing overhangs and caves with cleaner shrimp and Rubberlips. I wanted to extend my hand and say “hey guys, it’s been a while, how are you doing?” It was good to be among old friends again, or at least their offspring, who knows how many generations it has been between then and now? On the way back to the lodge with Dhows in the background we were rewarded with a school of dolphin moving in to surf our bow-wave and perhaps to give us a royal send-off.

This, I thought, can only be as good as it gets. Here I am on a romantic island, after some sublime diving, sun making ready to set, at one of the finest beach hotels in Africa, being pampered like a king, and more than pleased to see that scuba diving is just as it was during those first days of Mozambique’s re-awakening and although much has changed on the islands, for the better, thanks to Indigo Bay Lodge, I am happy to report, nothing much has beneath those indigo waters near a reef they call Two-mile.

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