Antongil Bay

Antongil Bay is a great inlet on Madagascar's northeastern coast, sheltered to the east by the Masoala peninsula. The Antainambalana River enters at its northern end, near Maroantsetra, and the island of Nosy Mangabe lies within the bay. Steep and densely forested slopes surround its waters, which provide a refuge from the exposed Indian Ocean.

Sailors and pirates used Antongil as an anchorage during the age of oceanic trade. In the 1770s the adventurer Maurice Benyowsky attempted to establish a French settlement near the Antainambalana, calling it Louisbourg. He also used Nosy Mangabe as a quarantine station for the new enterprise. The fertile valleys north of the bay also attracted the Zafirabay, who established influence in the rice-growing country inland.