Mafia Island and Marine Park Travel Guide
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Mafia Island is a popular destination for visitors to relax after their safari and the island’s relaxed and secluded beaches offer privacy and comfort for discerning travellers. Mafia’s incredible and unspoilt dive sites have remained a well-kept secret of diving aficionados and beach recluses for years, but now the island is fast becoming a preferred destination.
For centuries, the island was a trading stop for Shirazi merchants travelling up towards Persia and under the rule of the Omani sultanate in Zanzibar, vast coconut and cashew plantations flourished. Today, all that remain of the island’s prestigious past are the coral ruins on Chole Mjini, the small island just off Hore from Mafia where the Arab landowners lived a sumptuous life removed from their plantations and slaves.
These days, Mafia’s remote location means it receives only the most selective visitors, but things are changing. The recent gazetting of Mafia Island Marine Park – the largest protected area in the Indian Ocean – to include surrounding villages in its conservation efforts means that the millions of fish and coral species that thrive in the warm waters of Mafia’s beaches will survive for decades to come.
Attractions in Mafia Island and Marine Park
Ideal for nature lovers, this is a real paradise with the rich variety of vegetation, which combines a mixture of bush with baobabs, mangrove and dream sandbanks. There are wild pigs, duiker, monkeys, small antelopes, dwarf hippo and nocturnal primates such as bush babies and the fruit bat or flying fox. Fish eagles and countless other wading and wetland birds frequent the shoreline.
Activities in Mafia Island and Marine Park
Diving safaris around Chole Bay, within Mafia Island’s Marine Park are outstanding.This is one of the highest bio-diversity marine sites in East Africa! There are over 400 species of fish, 48 genera of soft and hard coral, the endangered marine turtle, dolphins and the rare dugong.The bay also provides a rare alternative destination when the monsoon produces particularly windy days and the ocean is raging beyond the reef at other Tanzanian diving destinations. There are a handful of genuinely world class dive sites and you can be assured of never diving in a crowd.
Relaxing
It’s a wonderful destination to round off a wilderness safari or simply put your feet up and unwind!
Mafia Island and Marine Park Reviews
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