Lake transport: what's running

The Ilala is the boat that carries the lake's people and cargo: Monkey Bay to Chilumba and back, weekly in each direction, calling at Likoma, Chizumulu and Nkhata Bay, with room for about 365 passengers and 100 tons of freight.

Its recent history is turbulent. On 23 November 2025 the government grounded the 74-year-old vessel as a safety hazard, ended the private operator Mota Engil's contract, and created a state Malawi Lake Services Company to run all ports and vessels (Nyasa Times, 23 November 2025). By March 2026 the Ilala was sailing again under Malawi Lake Services — reporting on a 50% fare increase that month quoted the company's chief executive on the vessel's per-voyage earnings (Face of Malawi, 10 March 2026). It was then withdrawn on 27 March 2026 for an anchor fault, serviced, and reported back in service in April 2026 — that last report comes from the Malawi News Agency, whose article we could only see in search excerpts; the page itself would not load for us.

Even when the Ilala is running, its published times are loose: departures hours late, sometimes a day late, are well documented. Treat any printed time as the start of a wait, not a promise.

When the Ilala is off the water, the smaller MV Chilembwe (about 120 passengers) and MV Chambo cover the island routes — badly, because together they carry a fraction of the Ilala's load. During the 2025 gap, islanders who missed a sailing reported waiting up to a week for the next chance to board.

The MV Chambo began as a Mozambique–Malawi vessel sailing Likoma ↔ Nkhata Bay twice weekly from 2019, but a Likoma lodge's travel guidance says it had stopped calling at Likoma as of September 2024. We could not confirm its current rotation as of 12 June 2026.

A Likoma lodge's getting-here guidance lists the MV Lamani sailing from Nkhata Bay to Chizumulu and Likoma on Monday and Thursday mornings (departing roughly 8–10am, 5–8 hours on the water) and returning from Likoma on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. The page is not dated, so treat it as the reported pattern rather than a current schedule.

Up the roadless north shore, small boats out of Nkhata Bay serve Usisya and Ruarwe roughly twice a week each way, four to eight hours depending on the boat — these villages have no road at all, so the boats are their supply line. Lodges up that shore tell travellers plainly that the times change a lot and that the villages are out of phone signal much of the time.

The crossing east to Mbamba Bay in Tanzania is currently served by motorised dhow. That single sentence is close to the sum of published information: no timetable, no fare list, no operator page exists. People who make this crossing arrange it at the harbour.

How people actually learn whether a boat is running, here and on the islands:

Ask at the harbour. The port office and the boat crews know what no website does — travel writers' standing advice for the Ilala is that you learn whether it is running 'through hostels or local inquiry', and that holds.

Ask a lodge. Nkhata Bay's lodges hear when a boat is in, and lodges up the shore and on Likoma relay boat news over WhatsApp and Facebook because that is the only channel that works. Ulisa Bay Lodge on Likoma emails out an updated how-to-get-here sheet monthly (ulisabaylodge@gmail.com).

The district council's Facebook page posts occasional official notices, and national outlets (Nyasa Times, MANA, Malawi24) cover groundings and returns to service — usually after the fact.

We review this page on a rotation and date everything; if something here has gone stale, the correction form at the bottom of the page reaches us.