Ushongo Beach Cottages

Ushongo Beach Cottages are situated on a tropical palm-fringed sandy beach overlooking the Indian Ocean. They are comfortable and spacious with kitchenette, fridge, en-suite bathrooms and bedrooms with king-size beds. The large front verandahs have a picturesque view of the ocean. The cottages are set back 80 metres from the beach, enough to get a nice cool breeze. Cottages are per unit for a minimum of three nights and are available as self-catering or fully inclusive of all meals. Children are half rate for meals. All cottages have spacious verandahs. Bedrooms are spacious enough to have one to two extra beds. The Beach Villa lounge has a large verandah, two main bedrooms and a large kitchen and lounge, part of which can be converted into a bedroom. The guest cottage does not have a kitchen but meals can be prepared by the staff. Rates per Night: Full catering $20 per person per day. Guest Cottage: one bedroom $ 70. Beach Cottage: one bedroom $ 80. Kitchenette. Beach House: two bedrooms $130. Kitchen and small lounge. Beach Villa: two bedrooms $160. Minimum six days. Large kitchen and lounge. Ample space for extra beds. May be booked together with Guest Cottage for $190. Credit cards accepted only for deposits and final bookings. Cash required for drinks and incidentals. Meals are normally served on the front verandah. Drinks such as beers, wines, soft drinks and bottled mineral water are available to stock your fridge. Food and vegetables can be bought locally. Prawns, lobster, crab and fish are available from local fisherman. Arrange with your cook the hours you wish to have your meals. Consult with your cook the meals you require and any specialities or dietary requirements. Ushongo is a peaceful little place; it has no beach hawkers. The Indian Ocean is great for swimming with pleasant temperatures and soft sand. If you wish to eat out occasionally, there are some very pleasant little restaurants at the small local lodges just a few minutes walk along the beach. Vehicle Hire: Vehicles can be hired from $75 per day. Vehicle transfers - Arusha or Dar es Salaam $340; Tanga $90; Segera $120. VISITOR ATTRACTIONS Ushongo Bay is protected from the ocean by a series of reefs lying between 2 and 5 kms off-shore. The reefs are excellent for scuba diving and snorkeling. Along the outer reef are Maziwe Island, which is a Marine National Park, and the smaller Fungu Island. Maziwe Reef abounds with colorful fish and is ideal for scuba diving and snorkeling. Fungu Island is also very good for snorkeling. Skoodoos and other non-essential motorized boats are not available. SAILING: A Westerly 7-metre day sailer is available for hire. It has a bilge keel with a draught of 60 cms. The Westerly is ideal for the shallow waters around the reefs which makes it suitable for a half day or full day cruise around the islands; it will take four persons comfortably. Nungwe at the northern tip of Zanzibar is 4 to 5 hours away, and Stone Town 10 hours. There are four bunks and a 15 h.p. Yamaha outboard engine. The Westerly can be hired bare boat for which a certificate of competency or proof of experience is required. For those who would like to learn how to sail, instruction is available. Overnight Cruising in a catamaran is also available. re boat sailing (excluding fuel): Half Day $100. Full Day $150.A sample itinerary for cruising is below. Day 1. Sail to Nungwe at the northern tip of Zanzibar (4-5 hours). Overnight at lodge or guest house. Day 2. Continue to Stone Town (4-5 hours). Overnight at lodge or guest house. Day 3. Day in Stone Town. Day 4. Cruise to Prison Island, visit giant tortoise sanctuary, snorkeling. Day 5. Cross over to Saadani. Overnight at mooring or beach camp site in Saadani National Park. Day 6. Return to Ushongo Beach. Cost: $960. Includes boat and one crew who is also watchman. Not included: food, lodges, park fees. Overnights can be spent on board but not recommended for those with a tendency to get seasick on a moored boat that is rocking. SNORKELING: $70 per boat. 3-4 hours. Maziwe National Marine Park Fee $12 per person. Maziwe Island Marine National Park and Fungu Island are 7 kms off-shore. Both are excellent for snorkeling. They are submerged at high tide. The islands take 30 to 40 minutes to get to in a local boat. Normally the boat leaves an hour before low tide and returns three to four hours later. Lunches can be arranged to take out to the island. Please avoid stepping on live coral and do not collect "souvenirs". Sea Urchins exist on both islands but fortunately are in only a few areas. Fungu Island has not yet been declared a Marine Reserve but is still good for snorkeling. SCUBA DIVING: Evidence of a PADI certificate is required. If you have not scuba dived within the last 12 months you are required to take a refresher course. Cost is $105. Bubble dives are available for young children. Maziwe Marine Reserve Fee $12 per person. More details are available from Kasa Divers. Further information is available at their web site www.kasadivers.com . Rates per person for diving are - Single dive $80; double dive $105. For less than three divers there is a Boat Fee of $80. PADI COURSES: Introductory Course 1 day $105 PADI Scuba Diver 2 dives + Theory 2 days $360 PADI Scuba Diver 4 dives + Theory 4 days $500 PADI Open Water Dive + Theory 2-3 days $430. This qualifies you for Open Water Certification and the PIC. EFR 1 day Certification Course $210 PADI Rescue Diver 4 dives + theory $440 There is a $60 fee for the PADI International Certificate (PIC) and the PADI book. The certificate is internationally recognized and you will be able to dive anywhere in the world. Instruction is by qualified PADI instructors. The first course takes four days with instruction on how to adapt to a new environment underwater and permits dives to 30 metres. The course may be extended by a day or two to allow for those who may have difficulty. The instructors are very patient. Allow four hours per day for instruction. Rates: Unguided - Boat Fee $75 per half day trip; Guided - Boat Fee $70 per half day trip plus $30 per person. WINDSURFING AND CANOEING $10 per person per hour. The best time for canoeing is generally before 10 a.m. when the bay is calm. DEEP SEA FISHING $100 per person. Minimum 2 persons. Fishing boats are available for both light fishing and small game fishing. Even if you don't catch anything, it's fun being out on the open water. Small fish can be brought back for personal consumption. Large game fish should be released, preferably undamaged. Please do not take more fish than is necessary. BIKING: $20 per person. If cycling one way and driving back $50 (minimum two persons). Best done two hours either side of low tide when the tide has retreated sufficiently enough for a clear passage along the beach. It is possible to cycle 60 or more kms along the beach toward the south, fording the shallow rivers en route and stopping to have a look at some rock pools or the fishing villages. Choices are to go out and return the same day - bearing in mind the tide, or to cycle one way and drive back. SWIMMING: Ushongo Beach is excellent for swimming. There are no rip tides, no strong currents, no sharks, and the water does not recede very far at most low tides. The temperature of the water is 25+ Centigrade. As there is little variation in the tide, swimming in the ocean is possible at all times except at spring low tides. At the spring tides, waling around the small tidal pools is interesting. Ushongo Beach itself is also excellent for sunbathing and relaxing to read. It's white sands and palm fringed shores are picturesque and inviting. DAY VISITS FROM USHONGO PANGANI: Go upstream from Pangani and see coconut plantations and tropical riverine forest. This is a wonderful little trip and highly recommended. A boat costs $70 and a guide a further $10. The Pangani River is about 250 metres wide with a non-to reliable ferry service linking the roads to the north and to the south. There are cultural tours of Pangani Town which are interesting. Recommended is a guided tour of the old town with a history going back to Arabs and Portuguese of the 16th Century. Pangani is one of the towns that suffered the brutality of the slave trade. In 1810 the central Boma building was constructed and was later taken over by the German and later the British administrations and used as a District office. The carved doors still remain. The town is a little shabby but numerous old buildings are still inhabited. TANGA 8 hours. $90 per vehicle. A sleepy little town that once was a thriving port, rich from exporting sisal. With the collapse of the price of sisal in the 1970's it declined to its present state. Hopefully with the increase in sisal prices the town will find new life. Tanga Port is Tanzania's second main port but does not have container off-loading facilities. Tanga is 90 minutes drive from Ushongo. AMBONI CAVES 2 Hours. 15 minutes north of Tanga on the Mombasa Road. The caves are a very extensive and remarkable network cut into the limestone beds of the area. The $8 per person entry fee includes a guided tour of about one hour. SISAL ESTATE 2 Hours. Mwera Sisal Estate is owned by the British company Bigglesworth. The estate was originally established in the 1920's by a Swiss company. Sisal is from the Agave plant, a native of South America. It is also a crop that demands hundreds of hectares to be efficient. Like all plantation crops, a large supply of cheap labor is required. A tour of the estate includes the mill and the drying section. Up to 1970 sisal was one of Tanzania's main crops. The industry collapsed under the nationalization program of the time when it was thought that politicians made efficient business men and farmers. Privatization and increased prices for sisal have since made the crop once again an important export of Tanzania. HIPPO POOLS 35 minutes from Ushongo. A picturesque site. Hippos are always fun to watch. Crocodiles inhabit some of the dams on the sisal estate; do not go too close to the water. SAADANI NATIONAL PARK (sah-da'-nee) This is worth a day's visit from Ushongo with the option of staying longer at one of the permanent camps or do-it-yourself camping at one of the public camp sites at $20 per person per night. Park fee is $20 per day per person. Saadani National Park is the only coastal park in Tanzania. It has a wide variety of habitats, including coastal thickets, acacia woodland and mangrove swamps. It is one of the few parks where African elephants can be seen swimming in the Indian Ocean. Animals to be seen include lions, leopards, baboons, hartebeest, reedbuck, waterbuck, wart hog and many others. Hippos and crocodiles are upstream in the Wami River. Vehicle hire from Ushongo is from $75 per day self-drive excluding fuel. A driver-guide is recommended at an additional $15 per day. TURTLES Maziwe Island is a small coral island eight kilometres off the Ushongo Beach. The island has long been a nesting site for green turtles. The island was one of many that lined the coral reef fringing the Tanzania island. Up to the mid-1970's the island was forested with Casuarina trees, but the trees disappeared and once it was greatly depleted the ocean finished off the remaining trees. There are many stories explaing the disappearance of the Casuarinas. One is that they werre cut down for firewood; another that they were destroyed by overgrazing; a third because Idi Amin's troops were about to invade the island so that it could be used as a base to shell Pangani the forest was cut down so it would not provide the enemy with cover; a fourth, and the most likely, is rising of the sea level. Whatever the reason, Maziwe Island is now covered by the sea at high tides with just a small piece of sandy beach as a reminder of its past glory as a Casuarina forest. The green turtles that came from nests on the island still return there to lay eggs. However, because the island is covered by water for most of the time, the nests are inundated and the eggs get wet. They then turn moldy and rot. To save the eggs and bring them to the hatching stage, an NGO turtle project employs local villagers to dig up the eggs and translocate them to beaches on the mainland such as at Ushongo. The project has also translocated eggs to other beaches along the coast including at Mafia Island. The problem of collecting the eggs is to be able to observe when the eggs are laid and to collect them as soon as possible before they are affected by sea water. This has to be within 24 hours of the eggs being layed by the female turtle. Also there are predators to contend with, in this case the two-legged variety from local villages. Other nests for the green turtle have been found on the mainland shores on beaches not far from Ushongo. The hatching ground for the turtles at Ushongo is located at Kasa Divers who have undertaken to monitor the eggs. There may be up to 20 nests at a time, all marked with their date of collection, estiamted date of hatching, and the number of eggs. There are usually about 150 eggs to a nest with 95% reaching the hatching stage. From the nest it is from 5 to 20 metres to the beach depending on the time of the tides and whether it is high or low. There will As the nests are in a protected area the threat is reduced of monitor lizards, mongoose and other predators. Apart from mammals, there are also other predators such as crabs. When the young turtles leave the nest, on the short distance down the beach to the sea they have to contend with the small ghost type crab that will grab the young turtle and drag it into their hole in the sand. The crabs are very common and at night at high tide are in their tens of thousands, a remarkable sight in the beam of a bright flashlight. Femal green turtles return to their birth site after thirty years to lay their eggs. Hopefully the green turtle will be back to significant numbers and continue to flourish, thanks to the many people who have have helped to save them. ACCOMMODATION Ushongo Beach Cottages are comfortable and spacious. They have a kitchenette, fridge, en-suite bathrooms and bedrooms with king-size beds. The large front verandahs have a picturesque view of the ocean. The cottages are set back 80 metres from the beach, enough to enjoy a nice cool breeze. All cottages have large verandahs. Bedrooms are spacious enough to have one to two extra beds for children. Rates per Night: self-catering or fully inclusive of all meals. Food kitty $12 to $20 (Children $5-$10) per person per day depending on choice of menu. Meals are normally served on the front verandah. Drinks such as beers, wines, soft drinks and bottled mineral water are available to stock your fridge. Food and vegetables are bought locally. Prawns, lobster, crab and fish are available from local fisherman. Arrange with your cook the hours you wish to have your meals. and the menu you would like to have prepared. Cash is required for drinks and incidentals. Ushongo Beach is a peaceful little place; it has no beach hawkers and is quiet and friendly. The ocean is wonderful for swimming; there are pleasant temperatures througout the year and soft sandy beaches. A swimming pool is available at a nearby lodge for those who would prefer to swim. If you wish to eat out occasionally, there are some very pleasant little restaurants at the small local lodges just a few minutes walk along the beach. Vehicle Hire: Vehicles available from $80 per day. Vehicle transfers - Arusha or Dar es Salaam $340; Tanga $90; Segera $120. Complementrary transfers to from and to the local airstrips if staying three or more nights.

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