Zanzibar North Dive Sites

Its wealth of coral reefs and sea life make Zanzibar a premier diving destination. These sites around the north coast of the island are among the most famous in the Zanzibar archipelago.

HUNGA REEF

Level: Intermediate-advanced
Depth: 16-18 m

Warning: It is important to dive on the slack tide to minimise current as you will want to stay on the reef.

This site is characterized by large schools of fish: yellow snappers, twin stripe fusiliers or emperors. You can also expect to see parrotfish, unicorn surgeonfish, brightly coloured coral groupers, moray eels, crocodile fish and trevally coming in to feast on the small fishes.

NANKIVELL

Level: Intermediate-advanced
Depth: 16-18 m

Warning: It is important to dive on the slack tide to minimise current as you will want to stay on the reef.

Nankivell Reef is a sister reef to Hunga. The structure is one large coral area with various rooms you can go explore inside. This reef is home to rays, red-tooth triggerfish that like to sleep inside the crevices, leaffish, clown triggerfish and sometimes large groupers hanging out in the current on top of the reef.

KENDWA REEF

Level: beginner-intermediate
Depth: 10-12 m

This is a great drift dive for the more experienced diver. The reef starts shallow and slopes down to 30 m, where it drops down vertically to 45-50 m. Several Napoleon wrasses live in this area, and sometimes white tip reef sharks can be found on the bottom. Sting rays, eels and scorpion fish can be spotted on the shallower part of the reef. The endemic and elusive Zanzibar butterfly fish can sometimes be seen in this area of Mnemba Atoll.

KICHAFI

Level: beginner-intermediate
Depth: 10-20 m

Kichafi is the dive sites when travelling from South to North, we begin in the stunning plate/petal/cabbage corals of Kichafi inspecting the crevices for hiding moray eels and enjoying the schooling snappers, emperors and often a few spadefish amongst the school. It is common to see lionfish hunting.

MISOLI REEF & LEON’S WALL

Level: intermediate-advanced
Depth: 10-30 m

These dive sites are part of a a coral wall covered in large numbers of reef fish, unpredictable currents make the dive suitable for advanced divers only. Around 30m there is a dropoff which has an interesting cave where you can find larger groupers. The shallow part from 10-18m depth has very nice coral cover with a large diversity of species!

CORAL GARDENS

Level: beginner-intermediate
Depth: 8-18 m

Coral Gardens has a mix of hard and soft corals creating a very colorful reef which is home to a variety of marine species: moray eels, octopus, and the usual reef inhabitants as well as small things like nudibranches, shrimps and even seagrass ghost pipefish on this site. When lucky we can also spot green sea turtle!

MBWANGAWA

Level: beginner-intermediate
Depth: 10-18 m

Mbwangawa has two separate patches of the plate corals and then a mix of hard and soft corals on the other areas. Starry pufferfish are commonly seen swimming on top of the reef and sometimes small to medium size groupers hiding in the crevices. We are likely to find peacock mantis shrimps, cuttlefish, octopus, and many different scorpionfish.

SHAMZI

Level: beginner-intermediate
Depth: 12-25 m

Shamzi Reef may not have the most impressive corals but we can find creatures on this site that cannot be found on the other sites! It is a fringing reef just off of Nungwi with only a few small sections of corals mostly between 12-14m deep, the slope continues down to a small wall which drops from 18-23m and continuing a slope down to 26-28m depending on the tide. On top there are plenty of nudibranches, octopus, pipefish, thornback boxfish, helmeted “flying” gurnard and for the lucky even seahorses and weedy scorpion fish.

CHAKATUNI

Level: beginner-intermediate
Depth: 12-25 m

Chakatuni Reef is located right at the northern tip of Unguja island and can be a little tricky for currents so it is best dived on a slack tide. We prefer the low slack, so if the current starts to pick up it will take us to the shallows rather than to the deep. Because of the currents, it is a great place to find schools of fish!

RENCO BOMY

Level: beginner-intermediate
Depth: 8-12 m

Renco Bomi is a large coral bomi structure, the top of the reef is at a depth of around 5m and drops down 16m. While this reef has sustained some damage from local fishers, there are quite a variety of corals and fish. We have quite often found frogfish, pipefish and even the rarely seen harlequin shrimp feasting on a seastar.

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