I’m on a boat off Mozambique’s Bazaruto archipelago, camera clutched between my knees, the wind nibbling at my hat as the sun blares in a cloudless sky. We squint at the silver sea in the distance, trying to make out the dark shapes of humpback whales as they surface and then disappear, their huge bodies curving into the water like Loch Ness monsters.

“Okay, ready?” shouts Mario over his shoulder, cutting the boat’s engine as two humpbacks head toward us. “You’re here to photograph whales, right? Well, here’s your chance! Go! Go! Go!”

Albert Segura, one of Mario’s students at the Bazaruto Center for Scientific Studies (BCSS), plops overboard into the blue swell. I hesitate. Albert is a slight young man from Spain. He makes it look so easy. I, on the other hand, am a chunky middle-aged woman from South Africa who has spent the past six years fuelling herself on post-dive chocolate eclairs. I eventually leap into the sea like a birthday child at a swimming pool, water everywhere. Through my mask, I see infinite blue and rays of light radiating from the deep. Unsurprisingly, there are no whales. Cetaceans are sensitive creatures who are probably averse to bellyflops.

Throughout the afternoon, we try and try again. I visualise that I am an Olympic swimmer, capable of slipping into the water with the stealth of an otter. Eventually we call it a day and head back to shore, where I collapse into the billion-thread-count bed at Kisawa Sanctuary and dream of whale eyes. And custard.

Kisawa and BCSS have a unique relationship. A few kilometres apart on Benguerra Island – with its tangled indigenous forest, pristine white-sand beaches and coral reefs – their symbiosis places the natural world at centre stage. Tucked away behind the dunes, Kisawa is a luxury 11-residence hideaway that has drawn its design inspiration from nature. Wooden walkways take visitors deep into the forest, where they are delivered into nirvana. Every whim or want is taken care of – we even had our own mixologist, and I may have drunk too many rum cocktails.

But besides the luxury, beauty and innovation of the resort, Kisawa strives to be as sustainable and supportive as possible. Local farmers and fishers supply much of the ingredients used in the resort’s three restaurants, a food garden is being cultivated to supplement this bounty, and artisans from the island contributed their skills to creating a low-impact, discreet haven that blends into nature’s palette.

It is this spirit of care and conservation that underpins the Kisawa-BCSS partnership: the dollars and euros spent at Kisawa fund the center, and BCSS is equipped with cutting-edge technology, a highly skilled team of marine experts, and the ability to serve as a platform for researchers and scientists from across the globe.

Originally from Spain, Dr Mario Lebrato is the chief scientist at BCSS, a non-profit ocean observatory and marine research station registered in Mozambique. He’s passionate about big data, big creatures and wearing big yellow fisherman’s waders. He’s also not averse to being dispatched from the boat far offshore to languidly swim home to the centre.

Bumping along in the boat as we head to the popular snorkelling spot of Two Mile Reef off Bazaruto Island, Mario’s voice wrestles the wind as he fills me in on BCSS’s main purpose: “We’re not only a research station, but a collaboration. So, we act as a springboard for scientists from everywhere in the world – whether they’re marine biologists studying whales or oceanographers tracking climate change. Even visiting expedition ships that need technical servicing. We’re here to share the huge amount of data we’ve collected over the years and give people the tools they need to do their work.”

One of these national and international collaborations is a plastic debris collection time-series, which involves a weekly retrieval of marine garbage. This project not only cleans the environment but is also contributing to the development of an artificial-intelligence app that will scan plastic flotsam to collect data automatically. The data can then be used to calibrate algorithms for the automatic recognition of patterns, trends in consumption, branding, and impact on marine life.

With comprehensive and historical data at its fingertips, BCSS has also worked with various institutions to study biological, chemical and physical trends in this part of the Indian Ocean. This has included data on temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, dissolved carbon, isotopes, nutrients, chlorophyll and megafauna tracking, which has spawned large-scale projects such as sensors, moorings, and the development of biogeochemical and climate models.

I offer Mario one of the chicken and pesto baguettes from the lunch basket Kisawa has packed for us. There’s enough to feed a squadron of synchronised swimmers. He politely declines, so I pass the basket to the others on board – Albert, Sarah and Cinda – who tuck into the five-star spread with gusto and tanned hands. They’re BCSS’s current intake of students, who spend weeks to months learning about marine life and ecosystems, taking part in anything from data collection and tracking dolphins, to writing scientific reports and learning about laboratory work.

However, this training programme is not exclusively for marine scientists. Australia-based Sarah Bertin has come to BCSS for two months. “I have an impact investing background, so I wanted to spend time on the ground witnessing the realities of ocean research, conservation and financing in one of Africa’s oldest marine protected areas,” she says. “BCSS provides a well-rounded understanding of the arduous work scientists, conservationists and local communities face in order to monitor, research and, ultimately, protect our oceans.”

Sarah adds that spending hours at sea has allowed her to sink deeply into nature. “These moments, many spent waiting and watching nature unfold before our eyes, have been the closest I’ve come to experiencing genuine peace.”

Supporting education is also one of the many functions of BCSS, which attracts local and foreign students seeking hands-on experience to support their studies. That’s why the enviably seal-like Albert is here. A master’s student from University Autonoma in Barcelona, he is focusing on offshore marine research operations, logistics and fieldwork surveys. He says every day at BCSS is an adventure: “We carry out such diverse activities, like cleaning Benguerra’s beaches or watching cetaceans from the boat. I’ve loved being able to learn more about the coral reefs while improving my diving skills. Being here has allowed me to see diving in a different way and I’m even more motivated to uncover the mysteries of the ocean.”

At Two Mile Reef, we putter among the tourist boats and the gaggles of goggle-clad snorkelers and find a quiet spot. I manifest my inner otter and slide into the sea with only a small splash and possibly some pesto stuck in my teeth. Unlike my usual diving haunts in Cape Town’s kelp forests, where the water temperature can drop to nine degrees Celsius, the water is bathtub-warm. Then I freeze. “Go! Go! Go!” shouts Mario.

“Is this go-go-go a thing now?” I yell back. “It’s just so beautiful!” Slowly, I flap my fins and snap my overwhelmed brain into gear. Below me is an undulating landscape of corals, fish and colour. I squeal through my snorkel and dive down. Bronze-coloured table corals as big as sofas jigsaw beneath me. Groves of branching corals reach their fingers into the blue, creating fractal forms that make my eyes go funny.

There are bright pink and green stone corals; Moorish idol fish in yellow and black pyjamas, their antenna-like dorsal fins streaming behind them. There are cauldron-like scleractinian corals in shades of dusky pink; grumpy-looking parrotfish in full regalia; shy powder-blue tangs in make-up that would make carnival dancers jealous; silvery needlefish; neon-splashed wrasses; schools of yellow goatfish; Dali-esque blue seastars draped over coral plates; anemones swaying in the current; giant clams flashing their cobalt underclothes – and, on the surface, a young green turtle paddling unperturbed among the flippers and flailing arms.

After two hours, I haven’t had my fill. But I’m conscious of Mario and the others patiently waiting in the heat, as well as my fingers turning into spat-out raisins and my neck slowly crisping with salt and sun. Mario hauls me back onto the boat, grinning. “Well?” he says. “Nice?” I just shake my head in disbelief and feel like crying. Heading back to Benguerra, we are tired and silent, taking in the sights of flamingos stalking the sand on the shore and local snorkellers wading into the water to catch their dinner.

With offshore seismic surveys being proposed to explore the potential for gas extraction off this coastline, the work of BCSS is ever more important. Out there in the deep ocean, humpbacks congregate in winter to mate, breed and nurse their calves. Reef manta rays and giant rays aggregate in these waters in summer to feed on blooms of plankton and get spruced up by wrasses and other fish at the various cleaning stations.

The entire ecosystem functions as one, from the tiniest nudibranch to the largest whale shark, and it is the tireless work of Mario and his team, with the support and alliance of Kisawa, that will help to ensure this region remains protected – for the communities that rely on the ocean for food and cultural practices, for the wonders that exist below the surface, and for sunburnt beauty-seekers like me who return home fattened by the magnificence of this marine fantasia.