Coral reefs, the elusive dugong and a wealth of other marine life in Mozambique’s Bazaruto Archipelago
- Less visited than its neighbours, Mozambique has a breathtaking coast, coral reefs and rich marine life, including some of the last wild dugongs in East Africa
- The Bazaruto Archipelago is our base for seeking the docile creatures, once mistaken for mermaids, which have been hunted to near extinction
When Christopher Columbus set off to discover new lands, he thought he saw mermaids. Records indicate the 15th century Italian explorer was disappointed, thinking them “not half as beautiful as painted”.
That is because they were not mermaids at all; they were manatees, large marine mammals found mostly in the warmer coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
I, on the other hand, am on the lookout for their near-identical cousins – dugongs – found in the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Also known as sea cows, their rotund bodies, vacuum-cleaner snouts, stumpy flippers, leathery grey skin and wrinkles of blubber make them unlikely stand-ins for the graceful mermaid.
Yet these clumsy creatures are widely thought to be the inspiration for the mythical half-woman, half-fish sirens of the sea, responsible for luring sailors to their ruin.
After all, both manatee and dugong belong to the scientific order Sirenia, so Columbus wasn’t the only one who saw a resemblance to mermaids.
