Top 10 Spots For Scuba Diving In Zanzibar and Mafia Island

Hunga Reef – Set next to Nankivell, both these sites offer diving options for the beginner at the depth of 12 or 16 meters. Beauty comes to you in the form of the gorgeous coral reefs that abound and the marine life that keeps you company. You don’t miss out on marine creature just because you’re a novice! You can hope to spot snappers, groupers, lobsters, dolphins and reef sharks among many other fish.

Aquarium – Often called the most picturesque dive site in the Mnemba Atoll. The dive site has a coral wall that slopes and is a wonderful diving place for people who have just started diving and for the novice snorkeler.

Wattabomi – Appealing to both experienced and novice divers, Wattabomi gives you great gradient slopes from 6 to 30 meters. Whether it’s reef diving or drift, you can do both here. It is a sensational underwater landscape. Massive offshore reefs and plate corals hide fascinating creatures in their midst. Look out for stonefish, octopuses, blue-spotted stingrays, and flounders among others.

Mafia Island – Whilst technically not part of the Zanzibar archipelago, and lying about 100 miles south, it deserves to be featured as it is the best island for diving off the east African coast, and is almost a closely guarded secret. Mafia is where you go to see exotic pygmy hippos, flying foxes, and in the water, the benign whale shark. Often called the ideal dive site, Mafia Island offers you channels, walls and slopes, more than 400 kinds of fish and an optimum dive depth of under 30 metres, perfect for sports divers.

Big Wall – Don’t even consider it if you’re not a seasoned diver. Big Wall lives up to its name- its depth is anywhere between 14 and 70 metres and it has powerful currents. Go here if you have a lot of experience and want a deep dive or wall diving experience. Caves waiting to be explored, overhangs that are nothing short of spectacular, walls decorated with sponges and corals, both hard and soft are all to be enjoyed. Go deeper and make friends with pelagic fish. Barracudas, moray eels, giant green turtles, hammerhead sharks and unicorn fish are some of the creatures you can spot here.

The Blue Lagoon – Off Michamvi Peninsula, about ten kilometres from Paje, the Blue Lagoon is in the southeast of the country. The reef protects this site from the sea, making a shallow space with a sandy bottom. You can dive here for a simple time, enjoying yourself with parrot fish, yellow boxfish, goat fish and butterfly fish, among others.

Manta Point – At a depth of 40 metres this place is only for experienced divers. It is filled with coral and fish. If you time your trip in the first three months of the year, you can swim beside eagle rays and devil rays. Other fish also exist, including the titan triggerfish.

Kinasi Pass, Chole Island on the Mafia archipelago – If you’re in Chole Bay, you’re most probably headed for Kinasi Pass. It’s nothing short of outstanding. Rock islands, overhangs and coral pinnacles abound. This is a dive site for advanced divers because it goes to a depth of 26 metres and has strong currents as well. It’s perfect for a drift dive. Garden eels and giant potato groupers are among the fish you’ll see here.

Panza “Paraportiani” Wreck – Just below the surface of the sea, in the south of Pemba, this site is a ship that sank in 1967. It is shallow but the robust currents can prove to be a challenge for novices.

Cement Wall – It gets its name from the cement carrying ship that lost its cargo in 1930’s, you can look for the three massive anchors of the ship, one placed right in front of a cave. You can dive from the wall, or take a dive across the garden- this is ideal for every kind of diver.