PEMBA ISLAND DIVING
Pemba Island has arguably the best wall-diving in Africa for variety, in a remote and captivating setting, often with less than 100 foreign visitors on the island at a given time.
Much hillier and greener than Zanzibar, her sister island to the south, Pemba is the world capital of clove production, and in season the air is heady with the smell of cloves being dried in front of people's homes.
55 kilometres long and 20 kilometres across at its widest point, the majority of the 370,000 inhabitants are subsistence or small-scale cash crop farmers or subsistence fishermen. The island is a very fertile place; besides clove trees, the local crops are mainly coconut, bananas, cassava and red beans, but also mchicha (a sort of spinach), tomatoes, and seasonal tropical fruits, and the deep Pemban waters close offshore provides many game fish.
Much hillier and greener than Zanzibar, her sister island to the south, Pemba is the world capital of clove production, and in season the air is heady with the smell of cloves being dried in front of people's homes.
55 kilometres long and 20 kilometres across at its widest point, the majority of the 370,000 inhabitants are subsistence or small-scale cash crop farmers or subsistence fishermen. The island is a very fertile place; besides clove trees, the local crops are mainly coconut, bananas, cassava and red beans, but also mchicha (a sort of spinach), tomatoes, and seasonal tropical fruits, and the deep Pemban waters close offshore provides many game fish.
Pemba Walls
Walls are everywhere on Pemba. The fringing reefs are close to shore, and the best are in the gaps created by the small outlying islands that run along the west coast. The coral is fed by the nutrient-rich Pemba channel and is alive with all sorts of weird and wonderful soft and hard corals and reef fish. It’s not a place for 'big' encounters every dive, but the variety and volume of small to medium-sized species is outstanding, with coral crabs, magnificent partner shrimps, nudibranchs, anthias, morays galore, schools of snapper and trevally, frequent meetings with Napoleon wrasse, groupers and barracudas, and the occasional ray or shark.
Many dives are on vertical walls, dropping from the azure surface through cobalts, and beyond into the depths - up to 600 metres straight down in parts. Njao and Fundo Gaps (nowhere near Fundu Lagoon) are stunning with over a dozen dive sites, the long walls at Kishani often have viz in excess of 70 metres, and Uvinje Gap has the teeming (and sometimes challenging) Slobodan's Bunker. Misali Island Marine Reserve is in superb condition, with coral gardens covered in hard corals as far as one can see in the generally excellent viz, and more deep, coral covered wall dives. All-in-all, Pemba is the boss's favourite place to dive in Africa.
Click on the links below for more information.
An article about diving the Zanzibar Archipelago in X-Ray Magazine
An article about diving the Zanzibar Archipelago in African Diver
An interview with the expert - Marine Biologist and author Dr Ewald Lieske
Getting to Pemba Island
Flying from Dar-es-Salaam to Stone Town on Unguja (or Zanzibar Island) takes 20 minutes. After a 15-minute break, the 35-minute flight to Pemba yields picture-postcard aerial shots of uninhabited islands and the reefs, before touching down in Chake Chake, Pemba’s biggest town, half-way up the west coast at the end of a long mangrove-lined creek.
The airport is a small ramshackle affair, and despite a plethora of attractions including atmospheric ruins, primeval forest, unique bird species, deserted beaches, and some of the best diving in the Indian Ocean, Pemba hosts less than 100 tourists at any given time, sometimes less than 20 in total in the four resorts.
Leaving the airport with a pre-arranged private transfer, you pass through Chake Chake and its crumbling buildings and stall-filled alleyways, the fruit and vegetable market, and watch the grazing hump-necked cows interrupt an impromptu football match in front of the mosque. Transfers to the north to The Aiyana, Gecko, and Manta Resort, take about an hour by road, transfers to Fundu Lagoon require a 40-minute drive south to the port of Mkoani, and a 15-minute bot ride to Fundu Lagoon's private jetty.
Find out more about the Pemba accommodation options by clicking on the button below.
Pemba diving ITINERARIES
Below you will find some Pemba diving itineraries with images of the different lodges in them, but this lists is by no means exhaustive. Below the itineraries is a link to all our favourite hotels and lodges in Pemba, from 3-star to 5-star luxury.
6-day Pemba Dive Holiday at Gecko Eco Lodge
including return airport transfers and 8 dives from USD 1,035 person sharing interactive itinerary here |
8-day Pemba Dive Holiday at Gecko Eco Lodge
including return airport transfers and 12 dives from USD 1,435 person sharing interactive itinerary here |
8-day Pemba Dive Holiday at Fundu Lagoon
including return airport transfers and 12 dives from USD 2,675 person sharing INCLUDES 2 FREE NIGHTS interactive itinerary here |
8-day Pemba Dive Holiday at Aiyana Resort & Spa
including return airport transfers and 12 dives from US$ 2,470 person sharing INCLUDES 1 FREE NIGHT interactive itinerary here |