"Echo Beach," the advertisement says, "is a small, boutique style hotel, on the south east coast of Zanzibar, sitting right on top of a stunning beach." Truly, it is a lovely beach, full of interest, and the water is clean, warm and inviting. Despite this, the hotel has its own private pool, so few people venture into the sea which, as with many East African beaches, has seaweed and other flotsam floating in it which, when it accumulates overnight on the beaches, is carefully raked up.
Yet the lagoon which stretches out in front of the hotel is an underwater paradise. At low tide it's possible to walk out across it to the fringing reef, less than a mile out, and watch the millions of brilliantly coloured and patterned small fish that flit between the branches of corals and soft sponges, while....
....heads of living corals, of many species, grow in the warm water.
There are shells to be found, like this giant clam, and cowries, tops, murexes, spider shells, and many more, although most of the best shells have been pillaged for sale to tourists - so those precious few that remain should not be disturbed.
Walking out across the lagoon and wandering round the reef is absorbing, but beware: wear tough shoes as every crack in the dead coral which forms the reef is inhabited, often by sea urchins whose spines easily pierce skin, break off and, unless rapidly extracted using a needle, will go spetic.
Other, even nastier characters inhabit the lagoon, including this lion (or devil) fish,
Pterois miles, whose fin spines are highly venomous, and striped sea snakes whose bite is even more lethal.
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