About 250 metres off the coast of Pemba Island, in Tanzania’s Zanzibar Archipelago, a small floating house sits over the reef. Its bedroom hangs four metres below the surface of the Indian Ocean, with windows on every side. This is the Underwater Room at The Manta Resort, one of the most unusual hotel rooms in Africa.
The Underwater Room: three levels over the reef
The room is built on three floors. At the top is a rooftop sundeck for swimming, sunbathing and stargazing. At the waterline is a lounge with an en-suite bathroom and shower. Below that, reached by a ladder, is the submerged bedroom, where the bed is surrounded by glass on almost all sides.
The structure was designed and built by the Swedish firm Genberg Underwater Hotels and unveiled in November 2013. It sleeps two guests and runs off-grid, partly on solar power. Electricity, a stocked bar fridge, snorkelling gear and a mobile phone for calling the resort staff are all on board.
An idea from a Swedish lake: Mikael Genberg and Utter Inn
The design comes from Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, best known for his little red Swedish cottages with white corners. His Utter Inn, a floating red house on Lake Mälaren in Sweden, has a bedroom below the water and served as the model for the Pemba room. Genberg likes to put that familiar cottage in unexpected places: in a tree, under a lake and, in 2025, aboard a lunar lander.
On Pemba, the same idea moved from a cold freshwater lake to a tropical coral reef. Underwater spotlights shine out from the bedroom windows at night and attract nocturnal sea life.
What you see from the bed: marine life of the Pemba Channel
The room sits in the Pemba Channel, a deep stretch of water about 50 kilometres wide between Pemba and mainland Tanzania. The channel is one of the most productive game-fishing grounds on the Swahili Coast, and Pemba’s reefs are known among divers for steep drop-offs and healthy coral.
By day, the resort lists parrotfish, trumpetfish and groupers among regular visitors, with an occasional octopus or squid. After dark the spotlights bring a different cast of creatures to the glass. Up on the roof, with very little light pollution, the night sky is the main show.
Pemba Island: getting there and what else to do
Pemba lies about 50 kilometres north of Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar, and about 50 kilometres off the Tanzanian mainland. Chake-Chake is the capital, Wete the largest town and Mkoani a key port. Pemba Airport (Karume Airport) has flights to Zanzibar City, Dar es Salaam and Arusha.
The island is one of the original Spice Islands. It has the greatest concentration of clove trees in Zanzibar, roughly 3.5 million of them, and cloves remain a major export. A stay at The Manta Resort combines easily with diving, snorkelling and a day among the clove plantations.
A night in the Underwater Room includes all meals and drinks, delivered by boat, plus daily snorkelling and one wellness treatment per day. Diving and private excursions cost extra. Availability is limited, so book well ahead and plan a few nights at the main resort, which has a restaurant, beach bar, dive centre and pool.
For more unusual places to eat and sleep by the sea, read about The Rock Restaurant, Zanzibar: A Table Above the Tide, and the underwater Subsix restaurant in the Maldives.
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