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Yesterday was a fabulous day! We woke up early and headed off to Chumbe Island at 8am. We caught our boat and headed out to the island. It was amazing. Chumbe Island isn't too far off the Island of Zanzibar and is the location of Chumbe National Marine Park. There's a beautiful coral reef off the shores of Chumbe. When we got there we were all astounded again by the beauty here. The ocean had some amazing colors. Nobody lives on the island (there's just a small tourist resort). We had about 2 hours worth of lecture about the island and the conservation effort and the importance of eco-tourism. It was pretty interested, but not what we all wanted to do with a lot of sun and a white beach near by. After the lecture we had lunch... rice and beans again..... can't eat that much longer... anyway...

Chumbe Island and last night in Zanzibar

Rachel Buhr
2006-08-21 18:23:19

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Yesterday was a fabulous day! We woke up early and headed off to Chumbe Island at 8am. We caught our boat and headed out to the island. It was amazing. Chumbe Island isn't too far off the Island of Zanzibar and is the location of Chumbe National Marine Park. There's a beautiful coral reef off the shores of Chumbe. When we got there we were all astounded again by the beauty here. The ocean had some amazing colors. Nobody lives on the island (there's just a small tourist resort). We had about 2 hours worth of lecture about the island and the conservation effort and the importance of eco-tourism. It was pretty interested, but not what we all wanted to do with a lot of sun and a white beach near by. After the lecture we had lunch... rice and beans again..... can't eat that much longer... anyway... After lunch we headed out to go snorkeling! It was sooooooo much better than Malindi. The reef had a plethora of color and types of coral not to mention different kinds of sea life. There were lots of jelly fish (most of them were the not stingy kinds, but we just had to
Lia enjoying the water at Chumbe Island Full Image
watch out for em), lots of different kinds of fish (don't know many names except baracuda, parrot fish, sword fish and many many more). I got to float through a school of fish. There were also giant clams (although I didn't get to see one) and sting rays. I also saw some sea slugs and lots and lots of sea anenome. It's amazing to see all of that withougt a pain of glass between you and the fish and to know that someone didn't put the fish in there for you to look at them. =)

We snorkeled for a couple hours and then headed back to the island. We got to lie around for a bit. Some of us went on a tour of the Chumbe forest. The island is made up of dead coral so there's no fresh water on the island and very little dirt, so the plant life is quite special and different. There's one cactus tree (don't ...