Uroa: A Working Village on Chwaka Bay

Where Uroa is

Uroa is a fishing village on the east coast of Unguja, on the northern side of Chwaka Bay, between Pongwe to the north and Chwaka village round the bay to the south. It is quieter than the resort strips further up the coast and is still, first of all, a working village: boats go out, seaweed plots are tended, and visitors are a small part of what happens there.

That is more or less the whole description, and there is no point inflating it. Uroa is reached by road from Stone Town like everywhere else on this coast — see the guide to getting around the islands. What follows is the practical detail that decides whether it suits you.

The tide

Uroa sits behind a reef flat like the rest of this coast, and Zanzibar’s tidal range — close to a metre at neaps, over three metres at springs — empties it twice a day. At high water the lagoon fills and swimming is easy; at low water the sea withdraws across exposed sand, seagrass and rock.

Swimming here is a high-water activity, and high water moves about fifty minutes later each day, so the good hour shifts across a stay. Boats leave on the tide, not the hour, which includes the fishing boats. If swimming at any time of day matters, that is the northern tip at Nungwi and Kendwa rather than here. The beach holidays guide covers the mechanics.

Chwaka Bay, which Uroa sits on the northern edge of, is a substantial tidal system in its own right: it covers something like fifty square kilometres at high water and averages a little over three metres depth at spring high water. A lot of water moves in and out of it, and the village’s working day is arranged around that.

Seaweed and boats

Uroa still works its seaweed plots, tended at low tide almost entirely by women, as villages along this whole coast do. It is a genuine industry under real pressure rather than a display: the higher-value crop has been driven out of the shallow lagoons by rising water temperature, and farmers realise something in the region of thirty to forty per cent of the export price. The seaweed farm tours guide sets out the work, what it costs the women who do it, and how to visit without making it worse. If you walk the flat, go around the plots rather than across them.

The village also still works its boats. The wooden vessel types of the Zanzibar Channel and the sailing tradition they belong to are covered in the dhow sailing guide, and village visits — including the honest caveat that named community programmes advertised on this coast frequently could not be verified as operating — in the village tours guide.

What runs from here

Chwaka Bay has extensive mangrove, visited by boat from the bay villages and covered in the mangrove tours guide. The bay is also quiet, sheltered paddling water, covered in the sea kayaking guide. Snorkelling and sandbank trips run from this coast, generally with a transfer.

The Jozani-Chwaka Bay national park, with the red colobus forest and the Pete-Jozani mangrove boardwalk, sits at the head of the bay and is a short drive away — covered in the forest walks and primate watching guides.

Practical notes

Reef shoes for the flat, as everywhere on this coast.

Uroa is a village and a conservative one. Beachwear on the hotel beach, shoulders and knees covered everywhere else.

There is little on hand outside the accommodation, so a stay here works better with transport arranged.

Rainfall is bimodal: long rains, masika, about March to May; short rains, vuli, about October to December. How the islands’ two wet seasons sit against the mainland’s is set out in Tanzania’s two rainfall regimes.

Common questions about Uroa