The Zanzibar Archipelago

Zanzibar is three islands wearing one name. Unguja is the main island, the one everyone means when they say 'Zanzibar', coral-stone Stone Town at its heart. Pemba, greener and quieter, lies roughly seventy-five nautical miles north across its own channel and still supplies most of Tanzania's cloves. Mafia sits a longer reach south, ringed by a marine park where whale sharks gather every year. Nine centuries of Indian Ocean trade — dhows (the lateen-rigged sailing vessels of the old monsoon routes) running goods between Arabia, India and the Swahili coast, a Sultanate that once supplied most of the world's cloves — left Stone Town's coral-rag quarter a UNESCO World Heritage Site and its harbour still full of working sail. None of the three islands holds a superyacht marina: a hundred-berth development planned for the Zanzibar Amber Resort stalled when the government terminated the developer's land lease, and every charter here still runs on the older pattern — a yacht at anchor, tenders and a shallow-draft support boat doing the close work over reef and sandbank. Two dry windows frame the season: June to October under the firm Kusi, December to February under the calmer Kaskazi.

“At Nungwi, dhows are still built by eye and by memory, no drawings, each hull taking the better part of a year.”

Signature anchorages

Three islands, one older pattern: Stone Town for clearance and history, reef atolls in the shallows off Unguja, a channel crossing north to Pemba and a longer reach south to Mafia's whale sharks.

• Stone Town & the port of MalindiThe archipelago's only port of entry — an open roadstead (an unmoored, open anchorage) off the UNESCO waterfront, sand bottom with reasonable holding but exposed to ferry wash and afternoon chop. A clearance stop more than an overnight; most charters push on the same day.
• Mnemba AtollAn oval reef seven by four kilometres around a private islet off Unguja's northeast shoulder. The Mnemba Island Conservation Area charges a per-person entry fee and landing is by arrangement only, but the lee anchorage over sand holds well and shelters through both monsoons.
• Nungwi & KendwaUnguja's north tip, clear of the tidal swing that empties other beaches at low water, and the archipelago's de facto small-craft charter base — a dozen-odd active yards still build dhows on this shore. Good depth close in, sheltered through the Kaskazi.
• Chumbe Island Coral ParkA closed forest-and-reef reserve southwest of Stone Town, pre-booked visits only. Moorings rather than anchoring over the reef itself; the reward is a solar-converted 1904 lighthouse and a 132-step climb for the view.
• Menai Bay & KizimkaziZanzibar's largest marine protected area at 470 square kilometres, shallow and reef-strewn along Unguja's southwest shore. Resident bottlenose and humpback dolphins off Kizimkazi; care needed over seagrass, better ground for a tender than a deep-draft yacht.
• Pemba — Misali, Manta Point & Njao GapA channel crossing of roughly 75 nautical miles north from Stone Town into open water up to 1,000 metres deep. Wall diving to 90 metres at the Njao and Fundo gaps, a cleaning station at Manta Point — exposed anchorages, for settled weather and a capable tender.
• Mafia — Chole BayThe island's original harbour and its one properly protected deep-water anchorage, good holding on the east side. Whale sharks gather in the marine park waters close by from October to March; the Chole Mjini ruins sit ashore on the bay's own islet.

The scene

Dhow yards, monsoon-season festivals, and a mosque older than any other dated building on the coast.

Table & stay ashore

A rooftop in a nineteenth-century merchant's mansion, a restaurant on a tidal rock, and beds ranging from a coral atoll to four metres under the Pemba Channel.

A week, sketched

Pair with

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