Travel Guide Mnemba Island

A dream island, with emerald and turquoise water, white sand and often clouds on the horizon, creating a striking contrast of colors. A confetti lost in the azure that belongs to Bill Gates! You're bound to hear a lot about it. Located around 2 km from Matemwe, the small atoll of Mnemba is 1.5 km long and 500 m wide. Here, the coral reef is very close to the shore. The seabed surrounding the island is renowned for its coral reefs, multicolored fish and dolphins, which can be discovered by snorkeling and diving. Visibility under the crystal-clear water can even reach 30 meters at certain times of year, which is exceptional for diving. The island is home to an unaffordable luxury hotel, which has prompted the government to introduce a docking tax on the island's sandbar, which is becoming increasingly overcrowded and upsetting the happy few who pay a fortune to stay on Mnemba. While the primary reason for this tax is not an environmental consideration, but an economic one, it will benefit the coral ecosystem, which has been damaged by unregulated overcrowding for decades, and allow it to regenerate. Specialists reckon it will take two years for them to be completely reborn.A new conservation tax. Since June 2023, boats mooring on the sandbar have had to pay a tax, discouraging smaller boats from dropping anchor. The latter are content to tie up to each other above a neighbouring reef, this one very well preserved, and to stop tourists in a natural pool in the lagoon at low tide, without letting them set foot on the sandbar in front of the island. Only a few companies continue to offer a more expensive stopover (US$25 per additional person).Warning: swimming with dolphins. We all dream of swimming with dolphins. But the proliferation of small boats off Mnemba hunting dolphins is a real problem. While this used to concern the dolphins in Kizimkazi Bay (where they had become rare...), now the poor groups of dolphins off Mnemba - often 3 to 6 dolphins - are harassed by a horde of 30 to 40 boats at the same time in the area. They are jumped on with flippers, totally surrounded and forced to swim at the bottom to get past the obstacles. There are no rules or regulations, it's a race between boats, and it's even dangerous to be in the water in the middle of this chaotic tumult. There's always the risk of being hit by a boat, especially as the captains are so young. We recommend avoiding this part of the trip in favor of the much better conditions at Kizimkazi at sunrise, with its schools of dolphins, where there are far fewer boats at the southern end of the island. Only Boss Dhow offers quiet dolphin-watching once the small boats have left, as this is a full-day excursion, not a half-day, but without swimming with them, just observing them.