Setting sail aboard a dhow or outrigger canoe means boarding a vessel straight out of Arabian Nights tales and discovering the northwestern coast of Madagascar.

It's a passage across divine waters to explore magnificent land. Dozens of possible stops await—deserted beaches, hidden villages, sandbars, islands, mangrove swamps—with only a few hours at sea before many more on solid ground.

It's also an opportunity to truly immerse yourself in the daily rhythms of Sakalava bush life and all its unexpected turns, ensuring each day feels genuinely different and unpredictable. It's rejecting a rigid itinerary in favor of living a genuine story in a real journey. It's traveling together authentically, with an entirely Malagasy crew, and maintaining the openness to discover, appreciate, and respect one another far beyond our differences.

It's staying connected, even merging, with the Malagasy terrain in general, and the Sakalava spirit in particular, doing everything to help travelers feel its every nuance.

It's finally bringing to life our buried childhood and adolescent dreams—those of a savory and comfortable tropical freedom from another era, at the borders of the surreal…for a few precious days.

The Dhows

Dhows are vessels of Arab origin. Their extraordinary history stretches back more than a thousand years, and these ancient boats reign from southern India to the northwest coast of Madagascar, passing through Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Comoros.

The Outrigger Canoes

The Sakalava outrigger canoe is the most widespread vessel along our coasts. In this region of steep, forested bush, it's the most suited means of transport for moderate cargo. It adapts fluidly between a "motorcycle" use and a "van" use depending on needs