Watamu is known for its beach, but the beach is the part you can see from the sunbed.
Around the beach there is a marine park, a tidal creek closed in by mangroves, the largest coastal forest left in East Africa and the ruins of a Swahili town.
Almost all of it sits within an hour by road or by boat, and many outings take half a day: you can do one in the morning and still spend the afternoon on the sand. The trips on the water have no fixed departure time, though — the tide sets it, and it moves every day. If I suggest an hour that looks awkward, it is because that is the window.
If you are already here with only a few days left, tell me when you're free: I'd rather tell you what genuinely fits that window than sell you the whole list.
Tide, reef and mangroves
Reef, mangrove channels and sandbanks that appear and disappear. The tide sets the time, not the calendar.
A morning on the water between reef and lagoon, on a route adapted to the sea, the tide and what the group can manage.
See the experience
A whole day on the boat from Mayungu, with a stop on the sandbank people call Sardegna 2: it only surfaces at certain stages of the tide, and the tide decides everything.
See the experience
A few hours by canoe in the channels of Mida Creek, with the tide deciding the time and the route. You really do paddle, and you move in silence.
See the experience
A couple of hours on a traditional sailing boat on the creek, in the slot when the light drops. You sit, you don't paddle, and you come back in the dark.
See the experience
Water in the morning, dunes and a Swahili village in the middle of the day, a canyon at sunset: a full day, described for what it is.
See the experience
A sandbank off Watamu that surfaces only when the tide goes out, and disappears when it comes back in.
See the experience
Forest, ruins and markets
What is there once you move away from the shore: forest, Swahili history, markets and the Marafa canyon in late light.
A morning split between the ruins of a Swahili town and the edge of the largest coastal forest left in East Africa.
See the experience
A sandstone canyon inland from Malindi, to the north, visited in the late afternoon because that is when the walls change colour.
See the experience
A morning on foot through the old town of Malindi, taking in the Portuguese pillar, the harbour and the market where people really do their shopping.
See the experience
Write to me and I'll check what is available over the following days. I'll tell you what is realistic to put together at short notice and what is not.
Safety comes before the programme. If the weather worsens, if the sea is not workable or if conditions in the park change, we talk it through and decide whether to alter the programme, postpone it or replace it with an alternative.
The conditions that apply in these cases are set out in the proposal you receive, so you know in advance how things are handled when the day is not the one we expected.
Many of them can be, but there is no single answer: the duration, the length of the transfers and the timings all have to be weighed against age. A dawn departure with hours on the road is not the same thing for a four-year-old and for a twelve-year-old.
In the form all I need is the number of children and their age ranges. Names, dates of birth and other personal details are not required: those, if they are needed at all, come only when a property or a park asks for them.
Tell me where you are in your trip and how much time you have. We start from there.
