Copyright © Tanya Piejus, 2003

Having so much enjoyed my two-month trip to East Africa in 1994, I'd long been itching to go back. I had my chance by volunteering to go on a Scientific Exploration Society expedition to one of the remotest parts of the world, the Quirimbas Archipelago in the far north of Mozambique. I spent four weeks with the SES team surveying coral reefs and searching for the elusive dugong, then made the most of my plane ticket by staying on for an extra two weeks of sightseeing.

Friday 18th October 2002

We started by losing John. Well, we didn’t really lose him, as such, because we never found him in the first place. The other seven of us successfully rendezvoused at the Swiss check-in desk at Heathrow between 4 and 5 a.m. despite holding up a makeshift sign saying ‘SES’, and grilling everyone with a backpack, John Wright remained aloof and we boarded the plane without him. We were in perhaps surprisingly high spirits for such an early hour in the day and for having mislaid our second doctor.

The flight to Zurich was short and uneventful, the flight on to Johannesburg long and uneventful. So we swapped the cold drizzle of Europe for the wet heat of Africa. Pounced upon by would-be porters and taxi, touts, I fulfilled my allotted expedition role and got us to the Formule 1Hotel (sic) and we soon located Mary and Sophie when we went to the Rawhide Steakhouse next door. There was still no word of John so I sent a text message to Anne-Marie while waiting for a Caesar salad and a cold beer. A friend of Sophie’s told us that Mozambique would be hot and humid and about as remote as it gets, which I kind of knew but it was nice to have it confirmed.

It’s a good group of folk and we seem to be bonding well. Everyone’s easy-going and willing to muck in. I booked us taxis for the morning to return us for an 8.30 flight into Mozambique itself. The Formule 1 was a strange affair. I shared a room with Sophie who took the bunk that was ranged perpendicular to the double bed beneath it.

I had a restless night, like the one before, and woke to hot feet and the constant sound of vehicles roaring along the expressway nearby. Dozing, I later thought I heard my name being called and jumped out of bed. But the sound stopped and I wrote it off to voices in the car park that had nothing to do with me. I’d just got back into bed when the sudden drumming of knuckles on our door confirmed what my wristwatch had just told me - I’d set my alarm but had forgotten to account for the one-hour north-south time change. The others were packed and ready to roll while Sophie and I were still rubbing the sleep from our eyes. We had plenty of time, though, and checked in well before boarding time.

It was a mere 45 mins to Maputo but we had an odd breakfast of crustless sandwiches and a mini carrot cake in that time. Even though we flew on to Pemba in exactly the same plane, they insisted on us clearing immigration and customs, waiting for our luggage and checking it in again. Once everyone had hauled their bags off the carousel, I was left with my hand luggage and no backpack. We had less than an hour until our plane for Pemba left, during which time I had to work out which baggage label was missing, report the loss to the Lost and Found people, check in and pay our collective departure tax. Thank good ness both Julie and Sophie speak fluent Portuguese. They were marvellous and Julie made sure that the uniquely slow and unobliging woman at Lost and Found took all the necessary details before our next plane left. I’d forgotten about the frustrating concept of African Time.

We finally got to Pemba in a tired heap and were met by the smiling face of Tooni. She soon lost her smile when we admitted that one bag and one member of the team hadn’t made it there with us. The Nautilus Hotel is blissfully situated within splashing distance of the India Ocean. We’re accommodated in beach huts with air-con, TV, fridge and comfy beds. There’s a gecko on my ceiling and rustling palm trees causing flickering shadows on the walls. This is what we came here for.

Tooni’s briefing was held on the patio with beers and a strong sea breeze. The Kayak Africa team are seasoned South Africans who can do and fix anything , including garlic-laced calamari the diameter of your arm. Gizmo the Jack Russell is coming with us too. The bone-numbing return truck trip has been replaced by a boat with fresh water and a toilet. Apparently, the reefs are in good shape too. I’m going to buy replacements for my missing kit which won’t be here by tomorrow. Anne-Marie is on the case and hopefully my backpack will be waiting when we return to Pemba. If not, the insurance company will be receiving a big, fat claim!

Saturday 19th October

After a log-like sleep, I got up in time to meet Tooni at 7 and take a trip into town to shop. Tooni borrowed bar-fly Dave’s Suzuki 4x4 and a bloke called Paulo from Russell’s Place where we ate last night. The bar there reminds me a lot of Kande Beach in Malawi. Fortunately, Paulo can speak Portuguese so was invaluable in helping me buy a T-shirt, two long-sleeved shirts, two sarongs, a pair of shorts, sun cream, a backpack and shampoo. We went mostly to the market near the port where we squeezed through the bamboo-hutted market stalls, dodging the swarming hordes of black bodies and bright clothes to find what we sought. We had to reverse most of the way out along the rutted avenue of dirt road to avoid the rubbish truck that was worming its way through the mud brick housing estate beyond the market. As is usual in these places, everyone has something to sell, whether or not they run a market stall, especially when they see a mzungu. No-one would haggle with four white people in a Suzuki so I ended up paying about 35 GBP in total for what I needed, paying prices that wouldn’t be out of place in London. I didn’t get everything on my list but a scaled-down version. At least now I have clothes and can blag pretty much everything else I need from the others who are being very supportive.

Eventually everyone was back on the beach and ready to take to the Orion. This is a wooden chug-along piloted by four Mozambiquans on which we splayed ourselves and all our kit for a trip out to Quisiva Island. It was four hours of rocking and rolling on a heavy swell and under a broiling sun. The doxycycline I’m taking as an anti-malarial has the unfortunate side effect of making the skin more sensitive to the sun and I fried in half an hour. One of my new second-hand shirts made the journey more comfortable.

We chugged along the edge of the mainland, all jagged cliffs and spuming waves. At one point a pod of five dolphins joined us for a spot of playful bow-riding before disappearing as quickly as they’d arrived. Then a plane buzzed the boat, 50 feet above the waves for no obvious reason aprt from the sheer hell of it. Laurie and Nicky were both seasick to the point of actually chucking up. One of the KA crew produced an impressive lunch of potato and egg mayonnaise, salad and bread rolls from the hold of the pitching boat.

Eventually the engine stopped and the boat bobbed gently on a calm sea. The island was buzzing with life. It’s home to around 300 people under a head man and the sight of a boatful of mzungus was enough to cause practically the entire population to flock on to the beach to check us out. We took to the kayaks to ferry people and some of the kit to the shore and the Orion crew poled across the tender with our bags. As we carried all our gear up the beach to set up camp, the village followed us. They formed a neat line on the far side of the fireplace and watched intently, but with a quiet politeness, as we unpacked. A gentle request in Portuguese eventually persuaded them to leave. I’m bunking down in Laurie’s tent with a borrowed carrymat and sleeping bag. Our unneeded gear is with Sophie and Julie in their more spacious abode.

Kayak Africa cooked up a great dinner and we’re all ranged in front of a beach campfire under a nearly-full moon with insects chirping in the bush, a cooling sea breeze and the occasional peeping of waders on the exposed sand flats. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Sunday 20th October

It was already steaming hot when we had breakfast at 6 a.m. Then followed a long period of briefings - from Morne about the kayaks and from Tooni about camp hygiene (not everyone is burying their loo roll) and on the science parts of the expedition. We went through procedures for laying transects, counting and recording fish and invertebrates and for doing the substrate survey. By the time we’d finished it was too hot to be in the sun. Julie recorded 37 degrees C in the shade on her dive computer. Six of the team went out with Tooni for their first dive to practise laying the transects. The other four of us took to the shade with bottles of water and our fish ID cards. Ali and I eventually joined Mary for a swim when the heat was at its most intense. The sea was alternately warm and cold and we tried to chase the cool bits. It was refreshing to a degree that was almost unbelievable and we lolled in the shallows before having a play in the kayaks.

When we were lounging around camp, the locals wandered through along their path and gave us the ‘African stare’. Often they waved fish hopefully at us but they didn’t have nearly enough for 16 people. A whole family came down, the women with their faces coated in a sort of clay to keep the sun off. They stood politely next to Mary, who was sitting on her own in the shade, until she engaged them in a pigeon conversation. They stood and grinned while we took their photos and eventually wandered off when we’d had enough and started to ignore them. At most points during the day we had an audience of some sort. They seem to find us very amusing.

When the Bluefin dive boat eventually reappeared, the rest of us were able to go off for our practice dive. I remembered how to kit up even though it’s been 10 months since I last dived, but then forgot to turn on my air. Four of us went down but only had one tape measure between us. It was laid out OK but then I must have twisted it when I reeled it in so that when Ali tried to lay it out again it got stuck. We eventually gave up and went for an exploratory dive. The coral seemed quite new and we reckon it’s regrowing after being destroyed by a cyclone. We spotted and couple fo the indicator species for our survey, but it was quite and odd reef.

When we got back to camp we had a few minutes to put on our poshest togs for going to see the chief of the village. We had a great entourage of locals accompanying us and a little wrinkled old boy came out of his mud house to see us, surrounded by his family. We made polite conversation relayed from Julie and Sophie in Portuguese to a villager who then translated into the local language for the benefit of everyone else. They said it was the only village on the island. The chief asked us if we had any medicine for his conjunctivitis which we don’t, but we gave him a bag of nuts and a tin of Game isotonic energy crystals. Eventually a melodic voice called them to prayer and we made our farewells. The chief went ahead of us and for a few scary moments we thought he was going to get us a goat to take back, but fortunately we didn’t have to take a bleating gift away with us. We’re now trying to sort out two tangled tape measures, having enjoyed another Kayak Africa feast washed down with rooibosch tea.

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