A sandbank with an island’s name
Fungu Yasin is one of the four gazetted marine reserves off Dar es Salaam, and it is not an island. The reserves’ general management plan describes it as a sandbank that is seen only at low tide, and records that it is devoid of vegetation. There is no land area at all in the plan’s own table: 0 hectares of island, 445.4 hectares of intertidal and 497.7 hectares of seagrass bed, giving a reserve of 943.1 hectares that exists mostly underwater.
Fungu is the Swahili word for exactly this — a sandbank or shoal. The name is not a mistranslation; the itineraries that list it among the city’s islands are.
What that means for a visit
You cannot spend a day here. What people do instead, according to the plan, is arrive by private boat at low tide, which is when the bank is above water and the seagrass flats around it are shallow enough to work. It is a stop of an hour or two in the middle of a boat day rather than a destination, and it only exists when the tide says so. Anyone selling you a Fungu Yasin trip should be able to tell you what the tide is doing; if they cannot, that is the answer to your question about them.
What is under it
The reef is on the western and eastern sides, and two areas carry coral cover above 35 per cent — one in shallow water on the south-west and one deeper. Elsewhere on the north and south, algae and seagrass dominate with coral cover of only 1 to 5 per cent. The plan is candid that this is the worst-affected of the four reserves: it records live coral cover falling by 8 to 20 per cent in the south-east reef areas, a shift in dominance from Acropora to Montipora and Porites, and concludes from the dead coral that mortality was more severe here than anywhere else in the system. Soft corals now contribute between 22 and 32 per cent of the reef’s biotic cover.
The seagrass on the west and north is abundant, dominated by Thalassodendron ciliatum and Thalassia hemprichii. Recorded fish include butterflyfish, sweetlips and groupers; the intertidal flats hold sea cucumbers, octopus, sea urchins, giant clams, rock crabs, cowries and starfish. The plan notes seahorses on the seagrass beds of the reserves generally.
The deeper water between Fungu Yasin and Mbudya is the one exception to the shallow shelf that otherwise separates all four reserves from the mainland.
Going
There is no scheduled boat. Access is by private or chartered boat from the northern beaches, and the trip belongs in the category covered by sandbank and island hopping rather than a beach day. See also snorkelling. There is no shade, no water and no shelter of any kind on a sandbank, which is worth taking seriously in this climate.
Common questions
Is there an island to land on?
Only at low tide, and only a bank of sand. At high water there is nothing above the surface.
Is it worth the boat?
As part of a day taking in Bongoyo or Mbudya as well, yes. On its own, no — and the coral here is the most degraded in the reserve system.
Why is it a marine reserve at all?
Because the protection is of the reef and the seagrass beds around it rather than of any land. Nearly 500 hectares of seagrass bed is a substantial habitat by any measure.