DURATION: FREE TO GO ON YOUR OWN

Zanzibar: Kite Surfing, Diving, Snorkeling & Low Tide Walks

Ahh the Indian Ocean, it’s a big ocean all right. The deepest, on average, on earth.

Imagine diving some of East Africa’s best diving sites. From peaceful turquoise lagoon dives to the more challenging off shore blue wall reef site for the adventurous deep diver.

Unlike its big cousin the pacific, the Indian Ocean isn’t complicated by a dozen swell-directions. Instead, there’s just one mainline – the southwest swell, curving up the eastern African coast.

Add to that the lovely monsoon winds that average 20-35 knots creating very big swells and up to 3.5m waves on the outer reef. Standing between the wind and Zanzibar’s east coast are just a few small islands that were unlocked from Madagascar by continental drift 100 million years before mankind.

At Paje beach, you’ll find consistent side-shore breezes, tropical wide sandy beaches for hassle free kite-surf launching and landing. Depending on the time of day (low/high tide) there is a choice of flat water, sandbars, lagoons and waves out on the reef making the coastline the ideal place to kite-surf (check out the windy season!)

THE TIDES
The difference between high and low tide, is exceptional. Every 5-6 hours, at low tide, the sea water is being drawn back for about 2 kms, which means there is no kite-surfing at the shore but only further into the ocean. Instead, during low tide you can walk out to the reef and look for shells and sea creatures.