At tiny Pemba airport, in Northern Mozambique, a row of clocks on the wall tell different times around the world, but every single one has stopped. This oversight nearly results in me missing my flight to the Quirimbas Archipelago.

'You won’t require a watch on Medjumbe, Mr Nic,’ says the check-in assistant. ‘Happy holiday in Moz-am-bee-kay.’

I climb into a single-engine 12-seater Cessna, and am thinking that the name of the destination – Medjumbe – sounds wildly romantic and idyllic, when the whup-whup of the propeller announces our departure.

‘We’ll fly over some of the most beautiful coast in Africa,’ says the pilot, an ineffably chilled goggle-wearing South African, after take-off. His appearance and the feel of the Cessna evoke the romanticism of flying in these small planes.

The Indian Ocean, seen from my window, makes me gasp: gulfs of the most exorbitant turquoise, mottled and torpid, diluting into shoals of jade-green and powder blue. Some islands have mud huts, others are uninhabited. I see a dolphin in the shallows.

Quirimbas National Park stretches 248 miles from Pemba to the Tanzanian border. Imagine the equivalent distance (London to Fishguard), full of paradise islands.

The civil war ended in 1992 and Mozambique is now at peace and ripe for exploration. Mercifully, tropical cyclone Favio and the floods last January did not reach Northern Mozambique.

Medjumbe floats into view – a mere blip in the ocean – dead-flat and laced with a green flannel of vegetation under the megawatt sun. Quite where we intend to land, I’m not sure.

It’s a trick of perception, because we angle in hard, drop suddenly and come to an ingracious halt on a half-built airstrip near a ruined lighthouse that imparts a cheerful primitiveness.

Tony, the hotel’s manager, speaks in half-whispered, reverential tones: ‘Medjumbe is 800 metres long and 350 metres wide. We have our own time, Medjumbe time, one hour ahead of the mainland. Welcome to our paradise.’

He points to a ribbon of navy-blue ocean and says this is the edge of the reef. ‘You can wade out and the water is only waist-high; it’s a quarter of a mile. By the way, don’t bother locking your doors. It’s only us.’

He gives me a blue plastic watch, set to Medjumbe time. I think it an eccentric feature for a tiny island to have its own timezone. The watch stops working 10 minutes later.

My dark-wood chalet is approached down a lane and feels isolated, its thatched roof and high-spec, log-cabin style interior blending in with the surroundings.

It’s rustically decorated with two four-poster beds, sea-weathered furniture, a bath and outdoor shower, a hammock and Jacuzzi. It has a barefoot luxury, ideal for those who enjoy the pleasures of nature, simplicity and absolute relaxation.

The beach is an S-shape of moon-white coral sand, waxing and waning to an interminable distance, the whitest white I have seen anywhere in the world. It feels like my own private beach. My reaction to the place is hysterical: I hug a Jackalberry tree.

There’s no-one to pick up the hundreds of perfect, pink conch shells, each one the size of a kitten, washed up and lorded over by black herons who bully the scuttling crabs.

Later, when flooded by the outrageous turquoise of the tidal Indian Ocean, the Medjumbe Lagoon is a soothing temptress to my jet-lag. I plunge in.

The resort is all-inclusive and the menus change daily: that evening, we dine on tuna sashimi, followed by lobster and prawns. The black, treacly Mozambican coffee, now a national obsession thanks to the Portuguese influence, is superb and an excellent complement to the pink watermelons and sweet pineapples.

Time slows to a few frames per second as this classic island experience gets the better of me: snoozing in the hammock, bathing in isolation, watching glorious sunsets that turn the whole island crimson and snorkeling on the reef among day-glow fish.

Two days later, I catch a 15-minute flight to Medjumbe’s sister property, Matemo. A larger island with four villages, Matemo Island Resort has Moorish undertones, with 24 chalets and more activities (ideal if you want nightlife). Footpaths allow you to walk through forests of baobabs to the local village. Come evening, you can take a sunset dhow cruise.

I enjoy the comfort of a billowing, Persian day bed. Dinner is a scrumptious seafood barbecue, served on a rocky promontory above the sea and lit by hurricane lamps and the moon.

The following morning, I opt for a daytrip to legendary Ilha do Ibo, a remote island, and we’re sailing past coral islands, supine and dreamy, and waving at passing dhows, traditionally constructed with a triangular sail while the fishermen’s songs carry across the ocean. These dhows make me think of tales of Sinbad.

The yellow blur of Ibo appears, a strange and mysterious air lingering about it. We land at a tiny anchorage, overlooked by the ancient stone walls of one of three pentagon-shaped Portuguese forts.

Going ashore is like travelling back to the 1800s, emerging into a ghost town bearing the tatters of an extraordinary beauty.

The square is baking hot, the chocolate earth inset with lumps of coral, with Muslim men cycling past on black bicycles, their panniers stacked dangerously high with 20 boxes of eggs, the ground pecked over by hens and goats and gone wild with maize and palm trees. There is a ramble of faded, yellow and grey palatial buildings, all derelict, but forming an incongruous museum piece – moss-covered, jungle-stained, and exuding grandeur. The former bank with its pink ironwork and grand stairways is a few steps from the cathedral. Tropical rot seeps through everything. I walk inside these deserted buildings, filled with an indescribable sense of discovery and exultation.

The Muslim villagers are politely curious. A little boy bows with a sad and subdued courtesy, as he tells me about Ibo’s 200-year-old town and the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, who landed here in 1502 when the island became a major trading port for ivory and slaves. We walk to the third fort, painted white and replete with ancient cannons and pepper pot-shaped battlements. The sooty interior is home to Swahili-speaking silversmiths who make jewellery using ancient Arab techniques that require blowpipes, charcoal, lemon juice and metal files. As dusk approaches, I can feel the ghosts of slaves and Arab merchants as I walk around the enchanting streets. I’ll not forget Ibo in a hurry.

I’ve devoted my life to exploring tropical islands, luxurious resorts and places of cultural heritage, but I’ve never been anywhere as pristine and magical as the Quirimbas islands.

FACTBOX

Getting There:
Kenya Airways flies from Heathrow Airport to Nairobi, from £356.40
From there take a domestic flight with Precision Air

Africa Travel Centre (0845 450 1520, ) can help you plan this trip.
Medjumbe Private Island and Matemo Resort are both run by Rani Resorts. For information on Ibo: www.iboisland.com

Time Zone: GMT +2 hours
Flight Time: 7 hours to Nairobi, then 3 hours to Medjumbe via Precision Air
Language: Portuguese, but English widely spoken
Currency: US$ widely accepted
Best time to go: Dry months in Northern Mozambique are April to November.
Visa: Upon arrival in Mozambique US$30

19 February 2008