After a period of staying home most weekends, as a result of Covid related restrictions, we felt it was time to get out again and find out what we could do despite beaches being closed and restaurants only opening for lunch.  We returned to Sky Island, a favourite resort in Ponta Malongane where we stay in pre-erected safari style tents on the hilltop overlooking the sea.  The timing was great, being at the height of the whale migration; sitting on the lawn with a drink whilst watching the whales is pretty amazing.

Sky Island has lots of its own activities available, which don’t rely on the beach, including its own launching site for parasailing (sadly, the weather wasn’t right for that); a large area of bush and forest filled with birds and monkeys (and apparently also bush babies, but we’ve never seen those); friendly donkeys and a few lawn activities, such as archery and ball games.  They also light a fire to sit around in the evenings and the eating areas are all outside, so it’s a good choice both for when the classic beach options are restricted and for Covid safety.

After a period of staying home most weekends, as a result of Covid related restrictions, we felt it was time to get out again and find out what we could do despite beaches being closed and restaurants only opening for lunch.  We returned to Sky Island, a favourite resort in Ponta Malongane where we stay in pre-erected safari style tents on the hilltop overlooking the sea.  The timing was great, being at the height of the whale migration; sitting on the lawn with a drink whilst watching the whales is pretty amazing.

Sky Island has lots of its own activities available, which don’t rely on the beach, including its own launching site for parasailing (sadly, the weather wasn’t right for that); a large area of bush and forest filled with birds and monkeys (and apparently also bush babies, but we’ve never seen those); friendly donkeys and a few lawn activities, such as archery and ball games.  They also light a fire to sit around in the evenings and the eating areas are all outside, so it’s a good choice both for when the classic beach options are restricted and for Covid safety.

We had no problem filling our weekend with activities.  On the Saturday morning, we went for a walk around the ‘food forest’ (basically a smallholding for the resort) and fished using the local style in the pond.  We had a tiny hook on the end of a piece of nylon line, a wine bottle cork as a float and a bit of squid for bait.  The more advanced even had a bamboo stick to reach further into the pond.  We caught a surprising number of little fish.

The afternoon was spent in Ponta D’Ouro, with the usual mix of shopping (and buying yet more brightly coloured wooden fish – that’s becoming a bad habit!), a walk along the beach (walking is permitted, but not sitting or swimming) and lunch.  The Love café was great and an especially nice place to sit while waiting for ages for Harriett to get her nails done in the new nail spa.

Sam and I went on a guided nature tour in the late afternoon, which was a nice wander through the Sky Island forest for an hour, but I’m not convinced the ‘guide’ knew much about nature.  What he did know he was unable to describe in English, Portuguese or even Changana (the local language); rather, he only knew his own local language from several hundred kilometres further north!  It was a pleasant walk though and having a guide at least meant we didn’t get lost.

On Sunday morning we headed back to Ponta d’Ouro for a whale watching boat tour.  We arranged this through Sky Island, and what we were actually going to do was a bit vague, but our understanding was about an hour’s ride around in a boat, hoping to spot some whales.  It was much better than that.  The Dolphin Encountours Research Center is a fantastic place; after a really interesting short talk about the local dolphins and whales, we scrabbled around digging wetsuits and snorkelling gear out of the truck (fortuitously brought along for the weekend just in case) when we realised the plan was to swim with the dolphins and not just watch them from the boat and then we headed to the beach to join the rib.

There was the usual excitement of getting out of Ponta bay in a rib; the water is shallow but waves are created along a break at the shallowest point and the boats have to use the additional depth created by waves to get out making for a rather bumpy and wet ride.  Imogen, who has done the ride before on a diving trip, was dreading it, but coped fine; Harriett, who hadn’t done this before, screamed in delight!

We headed out of the bay and dropped a hydrophone to listen to the whales.  The water was choppy and verging on the state at which they would call off the trip, but we could still hear whale sounds amongst the background water noise, but it wasn’t clear how far away or in what direction they were.  A few more minutes of motoring around and we saw our first whales surprisingly close – it’s obvious to say, but they are massive!  They are migrating humpbacks.  We watched them for a couple of minutes before they passed beyond us and over the South African border, where we could no longer follow them.

We then went searching for dolphins and a rough, wet ride northwards led us to a whole school of them right around the boat.  We more or less stumbled into them.  We scrambled around to put on our snorkelling gear before we lost them; Sam was with Harriett on one side of the boat and I was with Imogen on the other side.  Imogen and I slid in and were surrounded by dolphins.

They swam below us and then turned back and came around again, but soon continued on past us.  We were called back on to the boat and learnt that we were the lucky ones as the others missed the dolphins entirely.  A second drop into the water was more successful for all (except Sam, sadly).  We swam and floated for probably around 15 minutes with the dolphins.  We didn’t chase them (not that we could have kept up had we wanted to, of course), but they chose to interact with us, circling in and out of us.  I swam for several minutes with the girls enjoying the company of these creatures before looking for Sam.  Sadly, Sam was struggling with glasses (the smart new prescription dive mask I bought him for Christmas was fogging up) and he more or less missed the dolphins underwater entirely.  He got a good view of them above the water at least.

Swimming with the dolphins was fabulous; the rough sea didn’t bother the girls or me whilse snorkelling and we bobbed up and down on the surface, looking down fascinated as these clearly curious animals swam around us.  Definitely not an experience I think any of us will forget.  And Sam having missed out just gives us an excuse to go again soon!  [You can read more about our trip and see videos at the Dolphin Encountours blog here:

After the excitement of the dolphin and whale tour and another good lunch at Love café (a new favourite from this weekend) we of course had to do the other activity the girls associate with Ponta d’Ouro; quad-biking.  I didn’t fancy quad-biking, which delighted Harriett even more; she got her own bike instead of sitting on the back of mine.  Even Imogen had her turn at driving this time. 

A fabulous weekend with lots of new activities – we will definitely return soon for another whale and dolphin tour!