I caught an article in the FT Weekend, entitled, ‘Principe: a haven on earth.’ I’ll be honest, I had no idea that Mark Shuttleworth had bought the Bom Bom resort on Principe island. We did some digging for you, so you can find out more.

Let’s kick it off to find out where exactly Bom Bom Island Resort is. This, from the FT:

Príncipe (Wikipedia ref here) is a planet in miniature. As you approach in an old twin-prop 18-seat Dornier, it emerges from the clouds like a Caribbean Treasure Island, a patch of green in the endless blue with white waves breaking in numerous bays. Forest covers virtually everything, running right down to the shore, a jumble of palms, oka, and many other species.

But then you look south and see sheer volcanic peaks, their summits wreathed in cloud: this is more Lost World, like a scene from South America. Then, beyond the airstrip, the asphalt gives way to dirt tracks of deep red soil where simple wooden houses built on stilts dot the way. This is rural Africa, where women carry water on their heads and children stare out of curiosity before breaking into smiles.

Príncipe is 20km long and 12km wide. About 6,000 people live there, and last year 500 visitors stayed at its idyllic main hotel, Bom Bom Island Resort.

And that’s exactly what Mark Shuttleworth bought.

But for how much, you ask?

With a software fortune estimated at $500m, he went in search of a haven, eventually alighting upon Príncipe.  Shuttleworth, whom locals call the Man in the Moon, liked Bom Bom so much he bought it. He has also either bought or acquired rights to three other beaches that are such perfect vistas you begin to wonder who’s been Photoshopping reality. 

His love affair with the island – for which he has bold plans admirable to some, controversial to others – is going to cost a lot more than a ride on a Soyuz rocket.

“Tens of millions,” he tells me. About $95m over 15 years, says one of his aides. More than $135m, says another knowledgeable source.

Mark Shuttleworth

For a man known for both his foresight and resources, one wonders what his plans are for this tropical paradise, and how he intends to do it in a sustainable and ecologically friendly way.

On these sites, Shuttleworth envisages a series of resorts, one with beach huts, one with luxury tents, one as yet undetermined. He is well aware such development – or “areas of intervention” as his company likes to say – poses risks to a small island.

But like it or not, change is coming to Príncipe, he says. You could see it in the village of Abade, where I found fishermen making two new boats: dugout canoes, hacked from the trunks of trees as they have been for centuries. Yet just beyond the canoes was a shack with a satellite TV dish on the roof: last year electricity arrived in the village, bringing an endless stream of the outside world with it.

If change is coming, better that someone sensitive handles it. “You can’t will people [to stay in] poverty: that is a dangerous thing westerners try to do,” Shuttleworth says. “You have to try and figure out a way to improve people’s quality of life and their ability to participate in the world, while still protecting what they may not realise is very special about their environment.”

It really is a beautiful place. Click here to read the rest of the article and find out more about the ‘lost civilisation which lies behind the beaches and under the forest.

Check out the Bom Bom Island resort website here.

And their Facebook page here.

We found a video on Youtube so press play on that above, and click thumbnails below to check out the beautiful surrounds of Bom Bom Island.

Here is a blog run by a woman living on the island. Her husband’s job is to build a new runway for Mark and his island resort – so that people can get in easier.