Kinasi Pass

Kinasi Pass is the channel that runs through the centre of Chole Bay at Mafia Island, Tanzania, and is probably the most famous dive site on the island. It is a drift dive along two walls. The first is a deep shelving reef at 20 to 26 m, and the second is shallower at 6 to 15 m. The maximum depth is 26 m.

Currents here are often strong, so the dive is not suitable for everyone. You glide past rock formations, small caverns and overhangs, with a vast array of corals and parrotfish. Cracks in the rock shelter schools of trevally, sweetlips and snappers.

Resident giant groupers, pompano and potato groupers hold the pass, and barracuda and the occasional eagle ray cruise through. Great shoals of juvenile and adult reef fish, barracuda and other jacks sometimes block out the light, and pelagics come and go with the tide. The Pinnacle, a 12 m spire of ancient coral rock in the inner pass, is usually dived first, after which the diver heads south-west to the side of the channel to start the drift.