Gros Plan

Gros Plan is a Lagoon 450 sailing catamaran built in 2015, used by the Océane’s Dream dive centre for short cruises along the north-west coast of Madagascar. The vessel is small: four cabins, eight guests at most, a crew of four. This is not a two-deck liveaboard carrying twenty guests but a family-sized catamaran that slips into shallow bays and anchors off uninhabited islands.

Océane’s Dream is the oldest dive centre in Madagascar, founded in 1990 by Laurent Duriez and Eric Mercier and joined in 2000 by Gilles Mercier and Patrick Sahuquet. Today it is run by Olivier Andrianantenaina with an all-Malagasy team. The base sits on Ambatoloaka beach on Nosy Be, a few steps from the hotels and restaurants. The centre works to the ADIP system, has nitrox, keeps 65 twelve-litre steel cylinders and two fast boats with 200 hp Suzuki engines for day trips. A recompression chamber staffed by hyperbaric doctors is one kilometre away. Crew and instructors speak French and English.

Every cruise is the same length: six days and five nights out of Nosy Be and back, ten dives, two every morning. There are two routes. The southern one goes to the Radama archipelago — Nosy Iranja, Antanimora, Kalakajoro, Antsoha, Sakatia — with a night dive on the second evening. The northern one heads for the Mitsio archipelago: Tsarabanjina, the basalt organ pipes of Grande Mitsio, Ankarea, Marimbe, Ampanisoha. Both programmes are templates and are adjusted for weather; the afternoon almost always goes to a passage, a landing on an island and a visit to a fishing village. On some dates the operator leaves the archipelago open and decides closer to departure.

The cabins are identical: four doubles, two in each hull, each with its own bathroom and hot shower. The beds are doubles and do not split into singles — two people travelling together but not as a couple will be sharing one bed, and a solo guest should expect to be paired up. On board there is a saloon with a galley, a dining table in the aft cockpit under an awning, and sun space on the bow nets and on the coachroof. A cook works on board and the boat makes its own fresh water.

What matters about money. The cruise price covers the cabin, full board with mineral water and a package of ten guided dives. A service charge of 60 EUR per person is paid at the dive centre before the boat sails — the operator names this one plainly, and it is compulsory. Marine park entrance fees are not included and are paid locally; the operator does not publish a cruise figure for them (for day trips the rates are 40,000 ariary for Tanikely and 10,000 ariary for Nosy Iranja). Dive equipment is not included and is rented. Drinks other than mineral water (beer, soft drinks), tips and personal expenses are paid separately, and the operator does not include the airport transfer.

The season is a hard frame. Departures run from March to December; there are no cruises in January and February — that is the rainy and cyclone season. Water stays at 26–29 °C all year and the dry season runs May to October. Humpback whales are met on the passages from July to September, whale sharks in November and December; both encounters are seasonal and short, so the date is worth choosing around them. The operator’s high season is May, August, September, October and November, the low season March, April, June, July and December, and the cruise price moves with it.

Getting to Nosy Be takes a while: an international flight to Antananarivo (or via Addis Ababa or Reunion), then a domestic flight to Fascene airport on Nosy Be. There is a direct Air Austral flight from Reunion of about two hours, for which the operator quotes roughly 600 EUR. The operator books neither flights nor transfers. A two-month visa is issued on arrival for about 35 EUR, and the passport must be valid for six months after the return date.

One distinctive thing about the centre is its conservation programme run with the Madagascar Attitude association: coral restoration, beach clean-ups, mangrove planting and the recovery of abandoned fishing nets. A marine biologist leads it and any guest can take part.