Santa Maria is part of the mainland of Mozambique, but from Maptuo is easier to go by boat than drive. It’s at the end of a peninsula in the Maputo national park. To drive its one and a half hours on the good Chinese built road as far as the park entrance, then four or more hours on sand roads through the national park. More if there are things like elephants to see on the way. It’s somewhere we had been meaning to go for a long time, but never got around to. So, I booked us in, persuaded the kids they could manage without their friends for a couple of days and booked space on a boat.
We were staying in Cabo Villas. Self catering houses nestled in the dune forest. We got an amazing house with its own small pool and a view over the trees and down to the sea. The houses are linked by wooden walkways that take you through the forest. The forest is thick enough and the houses far enough apart that is feels very private. Well, it did until the pool guy without warning popped up at 8am while we were all sitting around in our pyjamas. We thought that as it is remote, we had to take all the food and drink we needed with us. But we did find we could get lunch at Machangulu beach lodge next door and head to the village around the bay where there were places to get food and you could probably buy a few basics.
The beach outside the front of the villas is stunning. As usual in Mozambique, pristine white sand and a turquoise sea. It’s then just a channel of sea, just a few hundred meters wide, with the island of Inhaca on the other side. It was close enough that Zoe did decide to swim over. The water does race through the channel as the tide changes. But she waited for slack tide and gave it a go. She got almost to the other shore but found at slack tide (or just after) there was still a fast current in just the final 20metres before the channel. It was running into Maputo bay rather out into the open Indian ocean, but even so Zoe decided not to risk it and headed back across to us.
As usual Imogen wanted to do gymnastics on the beach and brought with her, her “spot”. Which is like a round inflatable bouncy pad that she uses to get height. A bit like an inflatable trampette. A usual session of gymnastics and photography happened where Imogen managed various gymnastics moves while being filmed, usually by Zoe. This time however Imogen was doing one move where she got to the top of her jump, completely forgot what she was doing and simply fell to the ground landing on her shoulder and side. She was winded and not very happy about it. But, being Imogen, she was up and doing more moves about twenty minutes later.
The weekend was a pretty relaxed one with no real agenda. Harriett and I tried some snorkeling. I think I saw one fish, but drifting along in the warm ocean was quite pleasant anyway. The one thing we did organise (or I did) was a dive. This is becoming a fairly standard thing everywhere we go (as long as it’s by the sea and warm). This dive was different to the usual in Mozambique. If you read my diving blog you’ll see that usually there is a lot of faffing with boats to get to the reef. But here it was a shore dive. Which meant that you can just potter into the sea from the beach, which seemed perfect. So at the allotted time we waited on the beach, the dive boat picked us up and we took the very short trip across to Inhaca island where we parked on a beach and geared up. The visibility in the dive was minimal. The currents had whipped up the sand and so it was hard to keep track of who you were diving with, never mind see many fish. Imogen and I managed to stick together and we did manage to see a few interesting things. Harriett did manage some diving for the first time in a while and in quite challenging conditions.
,The longer we live here, the more we move from having a BBQ to having a Braai. Being so close to South Africa many South African traditions sneak over the border and the Braai is one of them. To me a BBQ is usually on a small wobbly grill with a couple of sausages and a burger and maybe a chicken leg when you are feeling exotic. A Braai is a celebration of meat and if half a cow isn’t provided per person then it’s not really a full on Braai. So Braai we did one night on the deck at the back of the house.
On the last day for lunch we walked along the beach to Bermugi’s. Again a famous name on Santa Maria. We passed their sunset deck and headed a little inland on a sand road before we reached the place. Once inside it was a little oasis of calm. Tables around a pool, shade sails, and quirky tables. We sat in an old boat and ordered our 2Ms (local beer) while the girls swam in the pool.
When it came time to go we packed up all our stuff and it was taken down to the beach where the boat appeared. All our stuff was carefully stowed in the hatches under the floor and off we went. With it being a calm sea, little wind and with the shelter of the Maputo bay the sea was almost glass flat as we took the hours boat ride back to Maputo. I think we should return here more often.
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