North of Zanzibar...a Cruise to Pemba Island
By John Connolly
First published in Grapevine #48 – Summer 2004
We set off from Blagnac on a Monday morning at the end of January to fly to Brussels and then on to Nairobi to stay with good friends for a few days before flying to Zanzibar. We had been to Africa before, having lived in Rhodesia for two years albeit forty years ago, but we were not prepared for the poverty and neglect in a Kenya which has been self governing since 1963. Endemic crime, corruption, pot holes in the road a foot deep and three wide, electricity failures most evenings at about 6 pm and telephones that worked occasionally, were laughed-off by our hosts as `normal and something you learn to deal with’. However, deal with it they did, with portable telephones (our own SFR service worked beautifully), a huge Nissan `Patrol’ whose doors locked automatically when you start the engine, rolls of razor wire round the garden and an armed guard at the gate. Wrought-iron gates with a big padlock at the top of the stairs kept you safe in your bed at tight, as did the burglar bars on all the windows. Mau-Mau terrorists ? no, they have long stashed their money in Geneva and died, but Nairobi has a big problem of violent crime and poor policing.
Our hosts took us to two of the most famous watering holes in colonial East Africa, the Norfolk Hotel and the Muthaiga Country Club. The original hotel built in 1904 was destroyed by fire in the 70’s but has been rebuilt in the same style. The food and service was immaculate. The road in which it stands is still `wide enough to turn a team of a dozen oxen’ insisted on by Lord Delamere one of the pioneer settlers, when the hotel was built. The Muthaiga Club, the meeting place of the people who governed our East African empire for most of the last century, clearly has not changed. Jackets and ties are still needed after six pm and there is a members’ drawing room and reading room where ladies are not permitted (yes, really!). We had an excellent dinner served by staff immaculately turned out in starched whites. If you listened carefully, with a little imagination, you could hear the chatter and clinking of port glasses of the ghosts of people long gone. On the walls of the bar are the crests of regiments like the King’s African Rifles, Skinner’s Horse, and the Manchester Regiment alongside those of famous British warships. Rudyard Kipling where are you?
We drove up the Great Rift Valley to the Nakuru game reserve where we stayed the night in the park lodge, very_ comfortable and excellent food. In addition to giraffe, elephant and many species of buck and birds, we were lucky enough to see a leopard, a black rhino aid a brace of silverbacked jackal. Then back to Nairobi and on the plane to Zanzibar.
Having paid $40 each for entry visas to Kenya, we were slightly taken aback by a demand of $45 each for entry visas to Zanzibar. Protestations that we were not only Brits but obviously pukka sahibs resulted in delighted smiles and warm welcomes, but no rebates! We joined the sailing yacht Jambo anchored off the main jetty in Stone Town, in the early afternoon. Jambo is a motor sailer 75 feet overall with a beam of 16.5 feet, rigged as a bermudian ketch, with a 400 h.p. Volvo Marine engine and this makes her ideal for cruising and diving excursions along the reefs and coves of Zanzibar and Poems Island. Her port of registry being Hamburg and her Captain a German, she flew the German flag but this caused consternation in our party of eight, all of whom had been serious yachtsmen and women and one had been a naval officer. However, the Captain agreed after a couple of large dry martinis that we could fly the pennants of the Royal Thames Yacht Club and the Royal Ocean Racing Club from the main yard arm. The Brits felt more secure.
With the mutiny over, we set a course E of N for Nugwi Cove on the northern tip of Zanzibar and a short run of 25 sea miles. With the N.E. monsoon blowing at a steady 25 knots on the nose, we needed the help of the engine to make sure that first martini of the evening and dinner were not too stressfully delayed. We anchored behind the reef protected from the swell, and an excellent dinner prepared by the Captain’s wife (a beautiful Kikuyu girl aged about 20), was served on the quarter deck. We slept like dogs in our airconditioned cabins and woke in the morning to breakfast of fresh pawpaw with lime juice and plenty of tea and coffee. No rough old Fastnet Race rations on this yacht. After breakfast we sailed seven miles SE to Nemba to swim with dolphins and then set sail for the SW tip of Pemba Island and about twenty seven miles away. With GPS and the computerised navigation steering the boat, a perfect land fall was easy and we anchored inside the reef and near to a wreck, ready for the snorkelling in the morning. Some of the more adventurous swam over the wreck and then we moved 7 miles E to Ras Upembe to do some more snorkelling from the outer reef into the channel, using the flood tide.
A four hour lunch was followed by a sleep but in the late afternoon we sailed 10 miles up the East coast to Mtangani Bay for an anchorage, where we met up with local fishermen who sold us three beautiful yellow-fin tuna and a king fish. These were so fresh they still had rigor mortis so we ate them raw, sushi style with Japanese horseradish. In the morning we took one of the dinghies into Mkoane harbour to go ashore and pay our respects to the Immigration Officer (and to pay him $50 because one of our party did not have a valid yellow fever certificate!)
We continued cruising the bays and reefs of Pemba to arrive South of Misale island and on anchoring in the evening, had an unforgettable Bar-B-Que of fresh lobster, steak, goat ribs and sausages.
In the morning we crept into a big bay through shallow water and coral heads by using Jambo’s dinghy, crisscrossing ahead of the yacht and manned by one of the crew reporting the depth from a digital depth finder, by radio. Getting out again was even easier, we simply asked Jambo’s computer to take us out on a reciprocal course, twists & turns included. What would the crew of H.MS. Fawn have made of our equipment? In 1878 she was the last ship to do a full survey, with a limited update by H.M.S. Owen in 1957. Neither of these slips spotted that their surveys were a good half a mile out, however they did not have our GPS.
The cruse was nearly over. We spent the last day in Fundu Lagoon, had a good dinner and far too much to drink, then set sail at 10 pm to run goose-winged before the NE monsoon. At 07.45 the next morning we raised Tumbanu Island, leaving only 20 miles to go to Stone Town. We spent the night in the Serena Ilotel with a warm breeze from the Indian Ocean moving the mosquito net and slept and dreamed of sun, sea, and… coral !!
Some useful information:
Hans Zahlten, Owner & Captain of `Jambo’
POBox 99165 Mombasa, Kenya.
Mobile. 00254 733 739 813.