Emerald Isle Quest: 6 Days Pemba Island Exploration
From - $1,500
per person, sharing
Safari Overview
Pemba is the Zanzibar archipelago's best-kept secret. It is greener, hillier and less visited than Unguja (Zanzibar Island proper), and its economy still runs on cloves - the whole island smells of them at harvest. For travellers, Pemba means two things: some of the best drop-off diving in East Africa, and an unfiltered look at Swahili coastal life that Zanzibar has largely traded away for tourism.
The Pemba Channel, between the island and the mainland, is deep and current-fed. That produces coral walls, pelagic fish, and dive sites that regularly appear on world top-ten lists. Non-divers are not left out: the reefs on the west coast are shallow enough to snorkel, and the Misali Island marine reserve, a short dhow ride offshore, is a proper white-sand day trip with turtles nesting in season.
Away from the water, Pemba has the Ngezi Vumawimbi Forest Reserve - one of the last stands of primary Swahili coastal rainforest, home to Pemba flying foxes and endemic vervets - plus a working clove-growing landscape you can walk into on foot. Chake Chake, the capital, is a small market town with a Portuguese fort. Kiwenga and Wesha have functioning dhow-building yards. This itinerary is written to give you a fair share of all of it.
We book you into one of two small properties on the north-west coast, arrange all transfers, and organise the marine and forest excursions in advance. Getting to Pemba is a short scheduled flight from Zanzibar or Dar; we book that separately.
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