Pemba Island
Your getaway to the “ Green Island.”
The charms of Zanzibar’s main island, Unguja, are now an open secret, and significant investment has arrived with the crowds of tourists. It means there’s no shortage of luxury hotels and resorts by the beaches, but what if you still want that remote island getaway?
Beaches
The sandy beaches on Pemba are as remote and crowd-free as they are beautiful. Getting to them is an adventure in itself and all the more rewarding as a result. The island is ringed with dense mangrove forest that has to be navigated to reach the beaches. Boat trips run throughout the day to access the islands hidden beaches and secret coves.
Head to Vumawimbi Beach cloistered amid the spectacular coastal forest of the Kigomasha Penisula on the island’s east coast, and you will likely find you have this spectacular sickle-shaped stretch of sand and crystal-clear turquoise waters to yourself. With most of the island’s hotels on the opposite coast, the beach is the ideal isolated spot for a picnic to remember.
Just another boat ride away is Misali Island, part of the fiercely protected Pemba Channel Conservation Area along Pemba’sm west coast. Pay the admission fee, and you’ll find some of the best diving in East Africa, with pristine coral reefs teeming with marine life easily reached from the beach. Inland from the beaches are caves thought to be inhabited by the spirits of the island’s ancestors.
Nature
Pemba translates from Arabic as “ Green Island,” and it is a haven of lush, fertile land-scapes that roll from forested hills to verdant valleys, all carpeted with plantations of cloves and a variety of fruits such as coconut and mango. You’ll smell the heady aroma of cloves across the island, especially during the harvesting months of September, October, and November when the picked flower buds are left to dry in the sun - a process that releases their sweet, heady aroma to infuse the island’s hot breezes.
Pemba is also home to diverse wildlife, including some iconic species endemic to the island. The Ngozi Forest Reserve is home to noisy populations of red colobus and vervet monkeys who swing from vines in the dense double canopy cover of the woodland here. Another forest resident is the Pemba scops owl, a highly sought-after find for bird enthusiasts. If you want to see a similarly endemic Pemba flying fox, the Kidike Sanctuary has around 4000 of them soaring above the treetops. On the ground, you may be lucky enough to spot the sky and skittish Pemba blue duiker ( a small antelope) as it ventures from the dense forest cover to graze.
Culture
Like its larger island neighbor, Pemba was a target for Arab traders for centuries. The relics of this time have a ghostly romance about them, with ancient ruins peppering the island and having become entwined with the growing forest vegetation.
One of the earliest sites is the Ras Mkumba Ruins, which dates to the 14th Century. It is located south of the island’s capital. Chake Chake, the site includes the remains of tombs, houses, and a mosque that was for some time the largest structure of its type in sub-Sahara Africa. As a primer for a visit to the ruins as well as a useful overview of the cultural history of the island, head to the Pemba Museum in Chake Chake. Located in an 18th-century Omani fort, which was itself built on the remains of a 16th-century Portuguese garrison, it houses a comprehensive set of exhibits revealing Pemba’s storied past.
You can also soak up the island culture firsthand with visits to Pemba’s rural communities.
Diving
Whether you want to safely snorkel over coral reefs just a few strokes from shore or strap on the scuba gear to plunge into the depths of the Indian Ocean, Pemba has got you covered. Go just beyond the coral reefs that ringfence the island, and you are suddenly in the 2000-meter-deep waters of the Pemba Channel, which is an aquatic magnet for marine life such as turtles, game fish, seahorses, reef sharks, cuttlefish, and Napoleon wrasse.
With visibility here, often reaching 20 meters and beyond, you’ll have an amazing view of underwater sights such as coral gardens, wrecks, underwater mountains, and long plunging walls.
August and September are the best months for diving and snorkeling, with water clarity at its peak.
Accommodation
Unlike the necklace of modern luxury hotels and resorts that dominate Unguja’s coastline, Pemba’s nascent Hospitality sector does all it can to blend in with the in with the island’s dense vegetation.
As a case in point, the exclusive Fundu Lagoon hotel is entwined among a mangrove-fringed beach on Pemba’s southwestern shore and can only be reached by boat. The barefoot beach luxury vibe is channeled by its Makuti-thatched suites, which are footsteps from the range of just the ocean and caught seafood that dominates the menu of its excellent restaurant.
If you want to be assured of some deep[ sleep on this most tranquil of islands, you could opt for the underwater villa at the Manta Resort on the island’s northwestern coast. The three-level loading suite has a top deck for sunbathing and taking in the cathedral of stars visible here at night, while the underwater glass suite allows guests to drift off to sleep while watching shoals of reef fish swim by.
Thanks to Zebra Stripes