Dear Guests,

Welcome to Pemba and the Swahili Divers website. We live on a beautiful green, forested, rag-coral paradise in the Indian Ocean . We invite you to peruse our site and see whether we can tempt you into making the journey down to Tanzania .  This website has been carefully put together to give you as true a picture of our Island as possible. While we may have crystal clear waters and four endemic species of birds, we are also located in one of the poorest nations on earth. We are not a luxury beach resort with designer bed sheets and super fast speed boats. We are an environmentally friendly eco-lodge, well entrenched in the local community with an excellent dive centre. Our dive guides are highly professional and know more about the underwater side of Pemba than anyone in the world. We dive all of Pemba , and we do it safely, no mean feat we can assure you.

We don’t know if this is your fifth trip to Pemba or if you saved for five years to come here. Our aim is that you leave our Hotel and Dive Centre happy and wanting to come back. We have activities and services to suit all budgets.  

We make one promise to you. “All of us at Swahili Divers will do everything that we can to make your stay a memorable one.”  

Swahili Divers is Pemba's most experienced dive centre. the first to use RIB's, the first to become a PADI 5* facility, the First to do exploratory diving, the first BSAC affiliated resort, the first to use EPIRB beacons. Swahili Divers is a dive centre for the experienced and serious diver, and also for the novice diver. We have enough professional Instructors to always take two groups of both levels of experience. Swahili Divers is Not a budget dive operation- no expense is spared in order to maintain safety, standards, and comfort. Kervan Saray Beach was set up in order to cater for the wandering diver. The rooms are spacious, but the facilities are very simple. Electricity is provided in the evenings, and the water is bush solar heated. The Kervan Saray is Pemba's budget accommodation option. Costs of living and operation are high in Pemba, so a hotel of a similar price in Zanzibar would have many more facilities. We welcome divers and non divers alike, and because we never have more than 12 rooms, we are able to give everyone personal attention-in that way, we are truly exclusive. Some people however, need spa's, massages, and doting care. The Kervan Saray is NOT that place. Please book your holiday at the simply superb Fundu Lagoon. www.fundulagoon.com. The Kervan Saray is a place for the slightly more adventurous individual. Some one who would like a small taste of Africa without it being wrapped in a soft white towel.

Welcome once again to Pemba , and welcome to our world.

Happy diving  

Raf and Cisca Jah

Owner/Instructor/Dishwasher/anthropologist

(come over to work out who’s who)