Why did we Visit Mafia Island?
We visited Mafia Island in hopes of seeing whale sharks, and we were not disappointed. Seeing these majestic creatures was spectacular! Whale sharks are not whales nor are they sharks. They are actually the world’s largest fish and can grow to an astounding 60 feet long. They eat plankton, krill, and other tiny fish. Although they are extremely large, they are gentle and generally safe to snorkel around.
When researching travel in Tanzania, I stumbled across a blog about snorkeling with whale sharks in Mafia Island. What?! I had no idea Tanzania had whale sharks around its islands. I was determined to make it happen for us! We booked with the same company that the blog had written so positively about. Afro Whale Shark Safari claims they have a 80-90 percent success rate of seeing whale sharks on their tours and we were visiting Tanzania during the right season. The best time to see whale sharks near Mafia Island is from October to February. We arrived to the island on October 13th.
Getting to Mafia Island
There are two ways to get to Mafia Island. You either take a multiple hour ferry from some small town that is hours south of Dar es Salam, or you take a short 55 minute flight from Dar es Salam. We chose to fly. The airplane to Mafia Island is the smallest plane I have ever been on. As I climbed on board, I had to shuffle through the plane bent over because the ceiling is so low. There are only twelve passenger seats and no overhead bins. I barely fit through the tight walking aisle between seats as I boarded. It was really fun seeing the pilot and the view out of the front window as we took off and landed. We actually had a surprise stop on the way, having to drop off a couple people on the tiny island of Songo Songo. This detour took us an extra 30 minutes, but seeing the tiny islands in the ocean was beautiful so we didn’t mind.
Once back on solid ground, a driver from Afro Beach Bungalows picked us up and in less than 10 minutes we arrived at the bungalows. These bungalows are owned by the same people that run the whale shark tour that I booked. We got situated in our bungalow, said “hi” to all the tiny ants that would share our room with us, and took a nice dip in the gentle ocean that laps the shore of Afro Beach Bungalow’s grounds. We enjoyed a couple cold beers and a pretty sunset before crashing early.
Snorkeling with the Whale Sharks
The following morning after a nice breakfast overlooking the beach, we followed the 3 guides and 5 other tourists into the shallow ocean to an old wooden boat. We headed away from land and got instructions for what will happen when we hopefully find the whale sharks. We would “get ready” by putting on our fins and snorkels. Then when instructed, we would sit on the edge of the boat with our finned feet over the water. When they yell “GO!” We jump in and look under the water.
After maybe an hour of cruising out into the ocean with the guides surveying the calm waters around us, they spotted a bunch of birds swooping at the water surface. Below these birds was a whale shark. We “got ready”. Then once the boat was near position we sat on the edge. “GO!” We jumped in and put our heads down. And there she was! Wow! She was gliding serenely just meters away from us. Then she drifted away. The guides started yelling “Swim, Swim!”. Oops, guess we need to move if we don’t want to loose her right away. We didn’t manage to keep an eye on her long, but no problem. We climbed back into the boat to look for more whale sharks.
The guides soon spotted a couple more whale sharks. This time we jumped in a bit slow. We were yelled at to “SWIM!!” But had no idea which way to swim. Haha! No luck. Try again.
We did manage to see a couple more whale sharks during the tour and even followed along with one for a long time as it was swimming nice and slow. After a long and amazing time managing to keep up with this last one, we were instructed back to the boat and we left the area. A few other boats had joined and we didn’t want to overcrowd the whale sharks.
We had such a great time and felt pretty lucky to have seen them for as long as we did. Therefore we were all ready to head back to shore for the day. It was definitely worth the trip to Mafia Island to see these beauties.
Fishing Village and Town of Kilindoni
We did leave our little slice of beach for lunch that first day after coming back from the whale shark tour. We walked along the sandy beach towards town, passing dozens of boats and returning fisherman along the way. We walked through a small fishing village built along the shore. We saw the women meeting returning boats to help carry in the catch, fish being cleaned, and communities sitting together while preparing lunch from the fresh catch. The women all wore colorful bright dresses and most had their hair covered with scarves. Most people were friendly and responded to a “mambo” greeting, though at least one man seemed upset that we were walking by during our return back to the lodge later.
In town, the children smiled and yelled out a few English words to us as we passed. When we couldn’t find the restaurant we had picked out, we asked two old men in a shop if they knew where it was. They asked a nearby teenage boy and he claimed to know it. He wanted to just explain where it was to us, but the older men insisted that he physically take us instead. While it turned out to be a different restaurant than the one we had meant, we just chose to eat at the one he led us to. We had a vegetable coconut curry which was quite good and a margarita pizza which was just ok.
Relaxing at the Beach
Since we had such good luck seeing whale sharks our first morning and my feet were torn up a bit from picking out too small of fins, we chose to just relax and enjoy the beach for the rest of our stay on Mafia Island. We read books with the soft lapping of the ocean waves in the background, enjoyed a jog on the sandy beach, took multiple swims whenever we felt a bit hot, and enjoyed sunset Kilimanjaro beers each night. The food at our beach bungalow was good and we also had a couple meals at the beach bungalow right next door. That was about all we did, just relaxed, and it was great.
The final highlight of our time here was that each night just after sunset, hundreds of giant fruit bats flew out over the ocean. Some flew directly over us on the beach. I hadn’t known they lived on this island until after we saw them the first night so it was a lovely surprise.
The ocean tide is quite extreme on Mafia Island. At high tide, the water only left a small beach in front of the bungalow properties and many boats are floating offshore. At low tide, the water recedes so far out that most of the boats are stranded on the drying sand and you would have a bit of a trek to reach water deep enough to swim in.
Impression of the lodging and tour with Afro Beach Bungalows / Afro Whale Shark Safari
The same people own and run the Afro Beach Bungalows and the Afro Whale Shark Safari tour. Because I had read positive reviews about the tour, we booked both the tour and lodging with them. Following is my impression from our experience with this company.
Our bungalow lodging was a pretty simple accommodation. If you like “nice” rooms and can’t handle bugs, this isn’t for you. There are ants everywhere, on the floor in the bedroom and climbing on the walls of the bathroom. I think this is going to be the case in a lot of these places along the beach, however I didn’t get to check out any other lodgings to compare. We really didn’t mind them much, but you should be aware that this is the case here and be mentally prepared. I thought the price was quite reasonable for beachfront lodging, at $50 per night for a bungalow.
I found communication with this company really challenging. Our biggest frustration was having them coordinate our flights. Their website offers that they can arrange discounted flights from other areas of Tanzania. I asked them about it, and eventually received a response. It was quite a bit cheaper than arranging the flights ourselves. Booking a flight as a foreigner costs more than as a local. We agreed and they were supposed to book them. We sent payment online and then didn’t hear anything back from them. Many attempts to contact them were unanswered. Finally I called their WhatsApp number and was told they would get us confirmation that day. No confirmation arrived. Weeks later I tried again. This continued with many more frustrating lacks of responses and unmet assurances. I had started the process of requesting flights over 3 months prior to our visit. In the end we did get our flight confirmations (the last one just a couple days before our flight). The flight itself went smoothly. We don’t think the money savings was worth the stress throughout the process though. There were also a few issues in communication about the lodging and transport, but they were minor in comparison.
As far as the whale shark safari tour with them, I think they were good for that. The guides were very skilled at finding whale sharks for us to see and getting us into the water near them. One of the guides even would grab your arm and pull you through the water with his powerful swimming, to lead you to the whale shark if you couldn’t spot it or were too slow to keep up. I definitely would recommend them for the whale shark safari tour.
Leave a Reply