The Flip Side of the Coin

Zanzibar is everything honeymooners dream about – deserted sandy white beaches, palm trees, moonlight, tropical all-inclusive resorts… But Dan and I are not on our honeymoon yet so we left that to those who have earned it!

After spending a few days with Ian’s son Mike at his house on Uroa beach, we decided that we should really see more of the island. So we headed north up the coast to Pongwe village, which is described in the guide book as “as near to the tropical paradise beach that you can imagine”. And they were right. We ignored the all-inclusive resorts and went to a lovely little place at the end of the beach, complete with hammock under a palm tree. Now I’m not that great with not doing much, so after a few swings I got itchy feet and wandered up the beach to the local fish market. This “market” consisted of a few guys sitting under an overhanging rock with a few fish by their feet. Being starved of sea food for the last year we bought a few of the largest coral fish we could see and had them prepared for us back at our guesthouse.

As well as having good fish to EAT, Zanzibar is also famous for its fish to SEE, so we changed tropical paradise beach again, heading up the coast to Matemwe, a village within sight of a coral atoll that has amazing snorkeling (and a hugely exclusive and expensive resort on the atoll itself). Unfortunately the trips were all booked up for the day we arrived but Sele (the owner of the guesthouse we were staying at) had heard of our love of fresh fish and took us off on his daily trip to the fish market (much larger than the one we had previously visited), where we spent several hours marveling at the huge tuna being brought in, as well as rays, eels, squid, octopus, lobster, snapper, coral fish and lots of other sea creatures that I don’t know the names of. The highlight was the kilo of crayfish we bought that were massive and also tasted delicious in garlic sauce.

The next day we were all ready for the snorkeling trip. We had skipped the other trips for loved-up couples and arranged one with the help of our guesthouse owner with a local fisherman. The arranged time came and went and it transpired that his boat was the wrong side of the coral wall and we had to wait for a few hours until the tide came in. No problem, a few more chapters of my book! Eventually the boat turned up and off we went, packed lunch and snorkels ready for some live fish viewing.

The atoll was temptingly in view but due to the coral wall we had to go quite a long way up the coast before we could start heading out towards it. All was going to plan until Putt Putt Putt… then Silence.

Engine failure – no problem, outboard engines can be temperamental. So our boatman began pulling the starting cord again and again and again…

After thirty minutes of that getting us nowhere, the engine’s plastic top was taken off and the engine was hit a few times (a bit like what you do with dodgy TVs – just give it a whack). All the while our little boat was being pushed by the pounding waves closer and closer to the cliffs. We alerted the driver to this, who threw the anchor overboard, which didn’t hold on the sandy bottom.

Another thirty minutes of frantic puling of the starting cord passed without results. Just as I was beginning to worry about how we were going to climb up the five meter high jagged cliff in a snorkel mask and fins another fishing boat appeared on the horizon. The fishing boat “New Ocean 2” eventually pulled up alongside and some furious negotiations in Swahili took place. Next thing I knew we were trying to jump ship onto the other fishing boat in the heaving and pitching waves, trying to avoid all the fish hooks and sloppy fish bait in our new boat.

Once the passenger transfer had been accomplished, the captain (who referred to himself as “the commanding officer”) agreed to change his fishing route to get us some snorkeling time at the atoll and to go to the posh resort to radio for his other boat to come out and pick us up and take us back.

So we pulled up on the exclusive island in our little fishing boat, covered in squid ink and with big bags full of fish offal-loaded hooks! The captain waded ashore to sort out our replacement boat and we headed off to get some snorkeling in. In we dived and the visibility underwater was fantastic. We saw lots of interesting coral fish and had a good half hour of snorkeling on the atoll before heading back to our guesthouse on “New Ocean 3”. (We heard later that our original fisherman rowed the boat back safely.)

We really enjoyed having a chance to recharge our batteries a bit on Zanzibar and it truly is a beautiful place, I hope it stays that way and doesn’t get ruined by the all-inclusive package tours!