Nungwi Beach

Nungwi is at the northern tip of Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar, about an hour and a half by road from Stone Town. It is the busiest beach on the island and it is busy for a specific reason.

Zanzibar's tidal range is large, and on the east coast the sea withdraws several hundred metres twice a day, leaving seagrass flats where women farm seaweed and swimming is impossible for hours at a time. At the northern tip the geometry is different: the tide runs past rather than out, and Nungwi and neighbouring Kendwa keep swimmable water through the cycle. That single fact determined where the island's hotels were built.

The beach is white coral sand, wide and bright, with warm shallow water and a reef offshore. Sunsets face west along the coast and are the reason the bars are placed where they are. Dhow-building has been done at Nungwi for generations and still is, on the sand at the northern end, alongside the hotels.

Development is dense by Zanzibar standards — a continuous line of hotels, restaurants and dive shops — and it has grown fast. Zanzibar is a conservative Muslim society, and the gap between beach dress and local norms is wider here than almost anywhere in the register; covering up away from the sand is expected and appreciated, and the point is worth making plainly rather than in a footnote. Kendwa a few kilometres south shares the tidal advantage and is quieter by day, and Matemwe on the north-east coast is where the tide does empty the sea — the contrast between the two is the clearest lesson in how Zanzibar works.

The tide runs past this corner rather than out of it, which is the entire reason the hotels are here and the east coast's are not. Dhows are still built on the sand at the northern end. Swimwear belongs on the beach and nowhere else — Zanzibar is conservative and the gap here is wider than almost anywhere in this register.