&Beyond Mnemba Island

A ring of coral reef, about three kilometres off the north-east coast of Zanzibar, encloses the small island of Mnemba, and &Beyond Mnemba Island has it to itself. A dozen thatched bandas stand just back from the sand under casuarina and palm trees. The beach runs all the way round the island, and the only other residents are the green turtles that come ashore to nest and the tiny suni antelope of the thicket inside.

History

Mnemba is privately leased, and its lodge, long sold as Mnemba Island Lodge, has for many years been run by &Beyond, the safari company formerly called Conservation Corporation Africa, which took its present name in 2008. The waters around the island form the Mnemba Island Marine Conservation Area, managed by the Zanzibar government. The lodge supports turtle monitoring on its beaches: nests are marked and recorded, and guests in season may see hatchlings make for the water.

The island sits in waters with a long history. Zanzibar was the seat of the Omani sultans in the nineteenth century and the hub of the clove trade, and Stone Town, about an hour by road from the coast opposite Mnemba, was listed by UNESCO in 2000.

Architecture and design

The bandas are built from local timber and woven palm under makuti, the dried palm-leaf thatch used along the Swahili coast. Walls open onto the sea, and the floors of the public areas are sand. Nothing on the island stands taller than the trees, and shoes can stay packed for the whole stay.

Rooms and suites

Each of the twelve bandas has a bedroom, a bathroom and a veranda facing the water, with its own stretch of beach in front. The island is small enough to walk round in well under an hour, so privacy comes from spacing and planting rather than distance. It works best for couples and for families who take several bandas together.

Dining

There is no fixed dining room. Meals are laid where guests want them, on the beach, on a veranda or under the trees, and the kitchen works with fish from local waters and the spices that made Zanzibar's fortune, cloves and nutmeg among them.

Location

The reef is the reason most guests come. The atoll is among the best diving and snorkelling sites off Zanzibar, with turtles, reef fish and dolphins in the channel, and humpback whales pass offshore in the southern winter. The lodge has its own dive centre for courses and guided dives, and kayaks and snorkelling trips leave from the beach. Day boats from Matemwe and Nungwi bring snorkellers to the reef, but the island and its beaches are reserved for the lodge's guests. The forest at the centre of the island holds suni, one of the smallest antelope in Africa.

Getting there is simple for a private island resort off Zanzibar. From Abeid Amani Karume International Airport it is about an hour by road to the north-east coast, then a short boat crossing to the island. Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar, lies about 35 kilometres off the Tanzanian mainland, and visitors coming from a safari usually fly in from Arusha, Dar es Salaam or the Serengeti airstrips; fast ferries from Dar es Salaam to Stone Town take about two hours. &Beyond, whose Tanzanian lodges include Ngorongoro Crater Lodge and Klein's Camp in the northern Serengeti, often sells Mnemba as the last stop after a mainland safari. The driest weather comes between the rains, roughly June to October and again around January and February, when the north-east monsoon, the kaskazi, brings warm water and calm days.