Bawe Island

I do enjoy browsing through the photographs I have of the holidays we took in Tanzania in the early 2010s. They remind me of three very enjoyable visits to the country of my birth but, occasionally, the enjoyment throws up a question - which is what happened this afternoon.

This is a picture of an island we saw out of the window of a light aeroplane on our flight from Saadani to Zanzibar in 2012. It lies in the Zanzibar Channel, nearer Zanzibar than the coast of Tanganyika. What island is it?

These days such questions are easily answered - it's Bawe Island, and I have marked in orange the approximate flight path of our 'plane. Bawe is one of a little archipelago of beautiful coral islands off Zanzibar's capital, Stone Town.

Today it's the site of the Bawe Tropical Island Resort, the accommodation being for 30 people in 15 luxurious cottages strung out along the white-sand beach. It's a 30-minute boat ride from Stone Town, so it's easily accessible.... at which point another thought came to me. My mother and father met and married and lived in Zanzibar, and my mother loved beaches.  Did they ever go out to Bawe?

My mother's biographies are the only way of knowing, and she doesn't mention it. However....

....they did go to Changu Island, in their day called Prison Island, on several occasions, one of which is recorded in this photo captioned 'Picnic on Prison Islaand'. My father is on the left, the only person not in swimwear - he did not like beaches, swimming or picnics - and my mother is next to him.

The chances are that they did visit Bawe.